


Math is Rough, Love is Impossible

by schmanksdatrex



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn, and it is for volleyball, like iceberg slow, the slowest burn, these three share one braincell, volleyball idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 46,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29388420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmanksdatrex/pseuds/schmanksdatrex
Summary: When three of the up and coming star players of Shiratorizawa's are benched because they are failing math...one of them happens to know a childhood friend that can help.At a price...
Relationships: Ushijima Wakatoshi/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not the first fanfic I have written...but the first one I have EVERRRRRR posted.  
> Maybe don't be too mean please?

The three first year boys sat seiza in front of their coach, all three staring at the floor instead of the glare that Washijo was giving them. 

Washijo held three pieces of paper behind his back, red dotting almost the entirety of the papers.

“Boys.”

Two of the three boys jumped at the coach’s voice. The student in the middle stayed still, just waiting for the a man’s harsh words.

“I know that all three of you got into this school on a volleyball scholarship…” He pulled the papers to his front and seemed to review them. “But this is ridiculous.”

It was not the first time that the coach had to pull aside Semi Eita, Tendo Satori, and Ushijima Wakatoshi, but with the heads of the school pressuring him, he could no longer let it slide.

“Normally, I would make you three do 100 serves as punishment,” the coach pause and looked up, the twitch in his eyebrow becoming every apparent. “But my hands have been tied.”

Eita and Satori looked up at the coach while keeping their heads low.

Before delivering the final blow, Washijo sighed as he held up one paper in particular. “A zero? Seriously Ushijima?”

The boy in question actually bowed to the coach. “I apologize.”

The coach sighed one more time, “You three are benched until you get your math grades back up.”

Ushijima rose quickly and glared at the coach. “No.”

Washijo rose his voice at the rebuttal. “The headmaster has ordered it,” he turned from the boys, not giving them any sympathy at this point. “You had better get those grades up before the next tournament or you will all regret it.”

As the coach walked out of the gym, he slammed the door.

Satori finally sighed and looked over at his friend who looked like the world was coming to an end. “Well what do we do now? Reon and Jin already gave up on us.”

Eita suddenly looked up. “Well…”

Both Wakatoshi and Satori looked over.

“I have an idea,” Eita looked down with an almost pained expression. “But we may all regret it.”

The boys looked a bit confused as Eita continued with, “We are going to need a lot of candy.”

“Hey Ori-chan…”

A girl that was sprawled out on one of the school benches with a book blocking the sun on her face as she slept. She recognized the voice right away.

“Eita I am napping,” she removed the book from her face and looked over at three very tall boys. “What do you want?” She sighed and placed the book back on her face, going back to ignoring them and closing her eyes.

Shizaraki Minori waited and only half listened as her old best friend sighed.

“I need your help…”

The boys watched as the girl grinned and removed the book, sitting up and placing her elbows on her thighs. She looked over at Eita with an almost manic look on her face. “Oh do go on.”

Now having her attention, Eita looked away as he tossed her a bag of Hi-chews. She caught it easily and if possible her smile grew even wilder. Satori and Wakatoshi suddenly seemed to get a bad feeling about this.

“You have my full attention Tata-kun.”

Eita looked back at the girl who had opened the candy bag and was already shifting through for her favorite flavors. “We all need help with math…”

She opened one of the small candies and popped it into her mouth, chuckling as she did so. “Sorry, what was that again?”

Eita huffed, he knew the girl had heard. “Ori, we need help. They benched us until we can pass math.”

She looked up from digging through the bag again, confusion on her face. MInori looked around her friend and singled out Wakatoshi. “You mean they benched the Wonder Boy?” Her eyes went back to Eita. “Just how bad are your grades?”

Semi Eita hated this, but he handed over the exams that Washijo had thrown back at them as he had slammed out of the gym yesterday. Minori grabbed them and shuffled through the pages, wide eyed as she looked back up at them. “Oh boy, Tata-kun, your mom is going to kill you.”

The tall teen gave her a shaken smile. “Please Minori.”

She handed him back the papers and stood, dusting off her skirt, gathering her items into the bag (except the bag of candy), and tying her jacket around her waist. As she walked off, she looked over her shoulder.

“You know the deal Tata-kun,” she smiled. “I’ll text you when I am free.”

She threw a wave over her shoulder as she turned back around, walking off to her next class.

Eita sighed one more time, before he turned to his friends. He heavily placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Whelp, we may just have a chance.”

“Oh Tata-kun.”

Eita turned and was about to punch Satori. Ever since he had heard Minori call him that, he had changed out his “Semisemi” nickname for the even more ridiculous one her childhood friend used.

“Tendo, I told you I hate that.”

The red-head just smiled at him. “So you texted that we get to see your pretty little friend today?”

Eita sighed, “Yeah.”

Tendo gave a little dance, “You didn’t tell us that your childhood friend was so cute.” The middle blocker hadn’t shut up about it for the whole week. “Is she free? Does she have a boyfriend?”

The blond sighed and shut his locker, pulling on his inside shoes as Tendo continued.

“She’s so small and her curly hair,” he sighed and sparkling look in his eyes. “Do you think we can convince her to come watch us at games?”

Ushijima interrupted. “She can’t come see us if we don’t get to play.”

The ace had been quiet the entire week, obviously depressed about the turn of events. Both Semi and Tendo knew that the guy ONLY cared about volleyball.

Semi patted the taller teen on the back. “Trust me Ushiwaka, she can help…” Eita didn’t actually know if Minori could help Ushijima, his grades were the worst of all of them…but he tried to cheer up the ace regardless.

“Back to Ori-chan,” Satori kept going. Eita rubbed his face, he couldn’t wait for the bell to ring and class to start.

“Ori-chan,” Satori sang as they entered the corner of the library. “You are looking ravishingly today…”

He stopped when he saw the girl’s glare. She walked over to him, and even though the girl was a full head shorter than him, Tendo actually took a step back. The aura coming off the girl was scary.

“No one,” the girl emphasized as she stared up at the red-head. “Absolutely NO ONE, except Eita gets to call me by that name.” She stepped closer once more and Satori shuddered. “Got it Tendo Satori.”

The taller boy squeaked, but was saved as Eita handed the girl a box of Crayon Shin Chan Chocolate Biscuits. Her demeanor changed quickly and her sharp gaze turned away, “Oh, Tata-kun you remembered my favorite!” She smiled up at him, closing her eyes and turning back to the table as she opened the box.

“I have two more,” Eita said as he followed her to the desk, pulling out the chair closest to her. She stopped him however.

“Nuh-uh Tata-kun,” she pointed to Ushijima. “Wonder Boy needs the most help, he needs to sit there.”

Ushijima finally spoke up, Minori turning to a deep voice she wasn’t quite expecting. “I would like for you to stop calling me that.”

She chuckled a bit as he sat in the spot she told him to. Eita and Satori sitting on the other side of the table. “Let’s make a deal…”

She turned to pull a stack of papers out of her bag. Minori handed the boys one page each, watching as each of them frowned. “I will stop calling you Wonder Boy when you make higher than a ten on these practice tests,” her smiled turned back to the manic grin she had given them that first day as she opened the cookies and threw one in her mouth. “I will even share one of my cookies with you.”

Wakatoshi looked at her without any emotion on his face. “I do not like sweets.”

She shrugged tossing another cookie in her mouth. “Your loss.”

After twenty minutes, Minori held her head in her hand. Eita wasn’t looking at her, Satori was picking his nails, and Wakatoshi was still giving her that emotionless look.

“You guys are going to need a LOT of work.”

Eita spoke up. “Coach told us we can’t go to practice…”

“Good,” she interrupted. “I’m going to need…” she couldn’t even finish her sentence, shaking her head and leaning back in her chair.

Wakatoshi frowned, “It cannot be…”

“Wonder Boy,” she stopped him, pulling up the paper that gave her anxiety. “I asked you to find ‘x’.”

He nodded to her, “I did.”

She closed her eyes and bit her lip, counting to ten before she spoke. “You just circled the ‘x’ in the equation.”

Satori even had to laugh at this. “No way! Let me see!”

Minori didn’t stop him as the red-head grabbed the practice test. She looked at Ushijima, a very concerned look in her eyes. “How did you manage to pass middle school?”

Wakatoshi looked away from her to glare at Satori who had showed the paper to Eita. His friends were barely containing their laughter. The ace didn’t often feel embarrassed, but he had brushed right passed embarrassment and had reached flat out ashamed.

He was surprised when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder. “Hey,” Minori said softly. “Ignore them. Theirs aren’t much better.” She held up one that just had doodles on it. “Tendo didn’t even try.”

He looked her in the eye, it wasn’t the first time he had done so, but it was the first time he had actually noticed that her eyes were a bright green. She smiled at him and picked up a different practice test, pulling one of the open textbooks closer to them.

“Let’s get started,” she glared up at the other two. “You too, shut up and get that text book.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lets just pretend I remember anything about math...

They may not have been able to attend practice, but that didn’t keep them from doing so.

Eita set the ball for Wakatoshi and Satori tried his best to block the spiker.

“What is Ori-chan doing this afternoon?” Regardless of Minori correcting him, Tendo still called her by the hated nickname when she wasn’t around. 

After taking a drink from his water bottle, Semi answered. “She goes to cram school once a week.”

Ushijima nodded, “She is very smart.”

Eita sighed, “Yeah, and she likes lording it over me too.”

Satori bent over in front of the setter, but before he could say anything, Eita’s phone binged with a text message. He grabbed his phone from the bench and his eyes widened as he read over it.

_I left cram school early. Meet me in the library in five minutes._

“Well, looks like we have to cut this short guys.”

Ushijima frowned. “Why?”

“An absolute miracle,” Eita showed them the text message. “We are apparently bad enough that Ori-chan has decided to take pity on us.”

  
It was the seventh time that Wakatoshi and Minori had bumped arms. Minori frowned as she looked over at his offending arm.

He was about to apologize, knowing it was one thing he didn’t like about being left-handed. He always seemed to have issues with hitting other people when writing close to them. Before he could do so however, Minori stood and moved to his right side.

“Switch places with me Wonder Boy."

He did as instructed and scooted to the seat she had just vacated. As she sat in his seat, he realized what she did. His left arm was now on the outside of the table, her right arm the same. They wouldn’t bump into each other now.

She smiled at him as she leaned over to grab her strawberry yan-yan. “That’s better isn’t it.”

He just nodded, looking back down to the practice test in front of him.

“Now, back to where we were,” she pointed to the equation he was working on. Minori thought it best to go back to basics with him and she had pulled the basics of Algebra out from middle school. “In this one up here, x equals x times 2 minus seven.” It almost hurt Minori to go over such a simple problem, but the boy beside her was having issues with this one even.

“But why is x on both sides? It is impossible to find x if I don’t even know what to multiple two by.”

Minori held in a sigh. “So let’s find out.”

Her method was always a hands off approach, she wasn’t going to do the simple problem for him. He would have to do it himself.

“Read the paragraph up here again.”

She watched as his eyes scanned the page, mouthing the words as he did so.

Wakatoshi frowned, but went back to the equation and tried what he thought the instructions told him to do. When he finished he looked over at the small girl next to him. “X is seven.”

She smiled, but told him, “Now plug that in. Does seven equal seven times two minus seven?”

He looked back down at the equation and did so, when he finished he had written ‘7=7’.

Wakatoshi looked back up, Minori held a cookie stick with some of the strawberry frosting in front of his face, “Good job Wonder Boy.”

He took the cookie and ate it, even though he wasn’t the most fond of the flavor. Wakatoshi did however feel a bit of pride as the girl smiled at him.

“Hey!”

Minori’s smile turned into a frown as she looked across the table.

Tendo pouted, “You said he wouldn’t get a snack until he got at least a ten!”

“Baby steps Tendo,” she looked down at his paper. “I see you haven’t gotten any further with that problem since I last checked.”

“Wah,” the red-head threw his pencil and leaned back in the chair. “It just doesn’t make sense!”

Minori sighed, but stood from her seat. Before moving to the other side of the table, she leaned down and pointed to the book in front of Ushijima. “Work on these while I go help Tendo ok?”

Ushijima nodded, but felt unsure as she left his side.

He was distracted as he watched the girl look over the equation on the other side of the table then pulled back and smacked Tendo on the back of his head.

“Baka.”

He turned back to the next problem and set to work. 

  
Minori looked over the tests at the end of their session, her stopping it when she had realized that it had grown dark outside and she was getting hungry as dinner loomed nearer.

She pulled the cap of her red marker off with her teeth, circling wrong answers on the papers, the boys around her holding their breaths.

When she put the cap back on her marker, they all held their breaths.

“Ushijima,” she handed his paper back to him, “Good job.”

His eyes widened, almost flabbergasted that she had called him…

He realized what that meant and looked down at the paper. A big ’11’ was circled at the top. He couldn’t help the excitement in him, but no one would have known since his face barely changed.

“Tata-kun you’re getting better,” she mentioned as she handed him his paper. She paused and almost glared at Tendo. “You,” she pointed at him, not even handing him his paper. Instead she balled it up and threw it behind her. “Do you think that this is funny? Or are you really that stupid?”

Tendo pouted, “You gave Ushiwaka middle school problems!”

“I’m about to give you elementary school problems,” she stood from her chair. “It’s almost like you are doing this on purpose!”

Satori grinned and looked to the side, “Maybe I need private lessons?”

Shizaraki Minori stood quickly and glared. “Tata-kun.”

Eita waited, knowing what her next words were.

“Tendo is on his own.”

Tendo actually looked scared. “Wait no,” he stood as well, as Minori started shoving books into her bag. “I’m sorry Min…”

He stopped when the small girl turned to glare at him. “Er, Shizaraki-sama…I apologize,” He emphasized this with a low bow. “I’ll do anything,” he muttered.

Eita was trying to hold back laughter, happy that he finally wasn’t the biggest target in his childhood friend’s wrath. Wakatoshi just watched, unfazed by the red-head’s pleading. He had seen it at practice before.

Minori paused for a moment, then continued to pack her bag. When she was done she rounded the table and paused in front of Tendo, glaring down at him.

“I want…”

“Anything!” He interrupted, but zipped up as she rose a brow.

After a few moments of quiet, she spoke again. “I want taiyaki.”

Well, Eita thought to himself… “Sounds about right,” he said quietly.

Minori continued. “Each day for the rest of the semester.”

Ushijima had finally had enough. “You really shouldn’t eat as may sweets as you do. It isn’t healthy.”

Tendo didn’t care about her unhealthy eating habits like Ushijima did, he just needed her help. He nodded but had a sly look in his eyes as he said, “We can go grab one right now…”

Minori grabbed him by the ear and yanked on it hard enough for the two other boys to wince.

“I want taiyaki…AND no more flirting.”

When she felt she had made her point she let his ear go. “But I will take you up on going to get taiyaki right now.” She turned to the other boys. “Anyone else want to come?”

Eita rose his hand, “I’m down.” He smiled over at Tendo, “Especially if the Guess-Monster is paying.”

Everyone looked at Wakatoshi, and he nodded. “I will go, but will not partake.”

They all gathered their items and headed out of the library, Minori smiling and a bounce in her step in the anticipation of more dessert. 

“Why does she only want candy and sweets?”

Ushijima was staring at his tutor from across the cantina. She was talking animatedly with what he assumed were her friends, the girls all around her laughing at the story she must have been telling.

Eita didn’t look up as he blew on his udon to cool it down. “Her dad is actually very strict. He didn’t let her have sweet things when she was younger.” He sucked in some noodles and as he chewed he continued.

“He only let her have anpan on her birthday.”

Ushijima frowned. While he wasn’t fond of sweets he still had fond memories of getting cake and ice cream when he was younger.

“When we were younger, I would sneak her candy at school. When I started having problems with math…” he paused to grab some more noodles and before he blew on them again he continued. “And so that’s when we came up with the deal.”

Ushijima nodded. Eita had told them about it that day when she had first agreed to tutor them. For every day she helped them, they had to bring supply her with some sort of sweet.

Wakatoshi continued to look over at the table his math tutor sat at.

He didn’t jump at all when her gaze turned to him. She smiled, turning to her friends to say something and then standing up. His face showed just a hint of confusion as she made her way over, but she walked past him and sat by Eita.

“I’m going home this weekend.”

Eita looked over at her. “But…”

She waved him off, “I know, we have exams next week.” Her grin turned manic again, even Wakatoshi knew that smile meant trouble. “Which is why you guys are going to come with me.”

Eita straightened. “Your father…."

“Has been out of the country for three weeks, and is going to be until next month…” Wakatoshi noticed that the girl frowned slightly. “Mom is really lonely, and having a house full of teenagers will, surprisingly, make her cheer up.”

Semi looked down but had a soft look in his eyes, he laughed softly as well as he stirred the broth of his noodles. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She would like that wouldn’t she.”

Minori smiled and pat his back. “See you Saturday night then?”

He lifted more noodles, but nodded.

Before she got up to leave, she turned to Wakatoshi for a minute. “Pack an overnight bag ok?”

The ace stiffened. Staying at a girl’s house did not quite make him comfortable.

Eita elbowed him and he let out a huff. “They own a ryokan, don’t worry about it.”

Ushijima still did, but felt his shoulders relax a bit.

“Was that my beauty that I saw just now?” Tendo said as he sat down with his own bowl of udon.

Eita looked up at him. “Jeez, you MUST be a masochist. As if you haven’t already learned your lesson.”

Tendo smiled, “She is just playing hard to get. Ori-chan will come around and realize that I am the one for her.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I can just see it now, her cheering me on at a game. Her rushing to me after a victory and jumping into my arms. Me finally being able to tough those soft curls as I lean down to…”

“NOPE!” Eita stood. “Childhood friend! You are not going any further!”

The setter moved from the table quickly. Taking the bowl and leaving the table quickly, but shouting behind him. “Don’t EVER talk like that in front of me again!”

Satori squinted his eyes and smiled after Eita, turning to Wakatoshi. “You think he has had a crush on her since they were little?”

Wakatoshi also stood and grabbed his bowl. “I think that you have been reading too much manga Tendo.”


	3. Chapter 3

It threw Wakatoshi a little bit to see the small girl in regular clothes, not in her school uniform.

The weather was starting to get colder, so she had decided to wear tights with boots, a light coat and a scarf. The coat was a dark shade of green and seemed to bring out the green in her eyes even more. Tendo sighed at the sight of her, but said nothing, knowing the fine line that he walked with her.

“Everyone has overnight bags right?”

The three guys all held up small duffel bags and she nodded. “Alright,” she pulled her own very full backpack onto her shoulder, “Let’s go.”

Everyone was surprised at how close the girl lived to the school. Tendo and Ushijima looked confused wondering why she stayed at the dorms when it only took an hour by bus to get to the quaint ryokan that was in front of them.

She stopped as she opened the sliding door to remove her shoes. “Konbanwa,” she nearly shouted as she disappeared inside. Eita followed close behind her. Tendo and Ushijima seemed to both take a deep breath before going after them.

Once inside, Ushijima mimicked the smaller girl and removed his shoes and saying good evening to anyone who was there to listen. When he stood up he saw two women in front of him.

One was very short, shorter than even his tutor. Wearing a traditional yukata, she had a kind smile, blonde curly hair and vibrant green eyes. The other woman frowned and her eye seemed to be twitching.

She also looked almost exactly like the setter who had frozen in the entryway.

“Ha-ha,” Eita said shakily, “Wh-what are you doing here?”

The woman who they now knew to be Semi’s mother frowned even deeper. “Oh I think you know why I’m here,” she crossed her arms and seemed to stare down at the setter, even though she was shorter than him. “Care to tell me why I am here?”

Eita seemed legitimately scared and looked anywhere except at his mother.

Wakatoshi’s gaze was drawn to another area however. The smaller woman in traditional dress, regardless of not looking Japanese at all, had wound her arms around Shizaraki. After a moment, the older woman pulled away and started making gestures with her hands. Minori followed suit, gesturing quickly at who Wakatoshi assumed was her mother.

While Eita was trying to avoid his own mother, he was also gesturing to the smaller curly haired woman.

Tendo was the first to comment on it however.

“What are you guys doing?” The red-head mimicked a few of the gestures with a curious look in his eyes.

Both Minori and Eita turned to glare at him, but the older blonde smiled behind her daughter. In very broken speech she spoke.“I sorry” she seemed a bit sad. She pointed to the ear on the right side of her head. “Deaf.”

Both Eita and Minori spoke as well as signed.

“Don’t you dare apologize!”

“No don’t Shizraki-sama.”

Eita’s mother now turned her angry gaze to Tendo. “Will there be an issue here?”

Tendo straightened while Ushijima looked very closely to the woman who kept smiling, the smile looking very much like her daughter’s. Well, not the maniacal one.

“Sara Shizaraki.” Her pronunciation was off but nobody commented. “Not good with Japanese.”

Minori cleared her throat and looked at the boys behind her. “Mama,” she was gesturing again, Wakatoshi know knowing it was sign language. “We are going to go study now.” They all knew that she wasn’t ‘talking’ to her mother, but to them.

“Oh you BETTER be studying,” Eita’s mother growled at her son. “And if I get a call from the school again,” Eita flinched even before his mother grabbed his ear. “I won’t wait for you to come back home to yell at you.” 

“Ha-ha please!”

“Don’t you ‘Ha-ha’ me. I told you that you can only continue with volleyball if you keep your grades up. And you SHOULDN’T be bothering Minori to help you. Why do I have such a stupid son!”

Ushijima had stepped up and bowed to Shizaraki-san when Semi-san grabbed her son and hugged him.

“You should visit more,” she whispered to her son as she let him go.

Eita looked down at the tatami, “I know.”

His mother pushed him towards the other teens that were heading down the hallway. “Go and study you baka.”

“Love you too Ha-ha”

  
Soon they were all settled in her bedroom, a small and modest affair.

Minori’s room followed the traditional theme of the ryokan, her futon was folded away, but there was a kotasu in the middle of the room that she immediately turned on. Tendo and Eita both sighed contentedly as they settled under the warmth of the table. Ushijima hovered at the bookcases for a moment, reading over the titles. He had almost always seen her with a book and he found himself curious about what she read. Most of them were classics, but there were a few more modern novels, and at least two rows of manga as well. His eyes grew large when he realized some of the titles were in English.

“Ushijima, get over here.”

He turned and quickly joined the others under the warm blanket of the kotasu.

No one said anything about her mom, and Minori was fine dropping the subject for focusing on math.

“No Ushijima,” the ace still wasn’t quite used to her calling him by name. “You have to find y before figuring out x this time.”

He glared down at the equation. “But I need to find x.”

She didn’t quite sigh, but he could feel her agitation. “Yes and to find x on this one, you first have to find y.”

He glared down at the paper.

“Ugh,” Tendo sighed. “Can we take a taiyaki break Shizaraki?”

She glared at him. “Normally I would say ‘yes’ but you have to finish that practice test first. Exams are next week and I expect you all to get at least a passing grade.”

All boys looked up at her.

“There’s no way.”

“And just how do you think we are going to…”

“I am still working on middle school maths.”

She took a moment to look at each of them with a hard expression before she repeated. “Passing. Grades.”

They all continued to look at her with credulous looks. She continued with, “Or I stop tutoring you.”

The boys all grimaced and then turned back to the books in front of them, not even bothering to look up as the shoji screen slid open.

Shizaraki-san came in and dropped off Tsukune and Onigiri smiling at the teenagers as they worked their hardest around her. She waved to grab her daughter’s gaze and signed something that made Minori shake her head.

As Shizaraki’s mother left the room Ushijima looked at her and asked. “What did she say?”

Minori let out a frustrated noise. “She asked if you guys needed a break.”

“YES!” Tendo shouted. “This is a ryokan and so there must be onsen around here right?”

Minori glared at the middle blocker. “You of all people do not deserve a break.”

Eita leaned over and whispered, “Yes, there is an onsen.” This made Minori glare and Tendo wiggle in place, pointing his fingers at the ceiling as he danced in happiness.

“You don’t get to go until you answer half of those correctly,” Minori stated quickly, before the red-head got too excited.

Eita grabbed an onigiri, and stuffed it in his mouth as he looked back down to his practice exam. “Your mom still makes the best onigiri.”

“Write a review,” Minori stated as she turned beck to the volleyball player that needed the most help, smacking his hand as he reached for a snack as well. Ushijima glared at her, but she quickly responded, “Not until you get this one correct.”

He frowned but turned back to the problem, just staring at it as he tried to figure it out. His focus was drawn elsewhere when Minori pulled her dark curly hair back into a ponytail however. Looking up as he had never seen the girl with he hair up. Tendo as well had looked up.

While she hadn’t realized that Ushijima was staring, she glared at Tendo telling him quickly, “Eyes on your paper Tendo.”

Everyone continued to study quietly, Minori going around and pointing out things that they had missed.

Wakatoshi sunk into the warm water of the onsen as the two other talked.

So why does she stay at the dorms?”

Eita sighed as he sunk deeper into the water, his arms holding the edges of the bath. “Tendo, maybe you should just stop asking questions and enjoy yourself while you can.”

The red-head lowered himself into the bath until just his eyes were above the water.

After the three of them had exited the bath and donned traditional yukata, they returned to Minori’s bedroom to find her futon out and the tutor herself gone.

Eita turned and grabbed the two boys by the shoulder. “We are going to the other room.”

Tendo pouted, but followed him.

Eita knew what room to go to, having stayed there multiple times when he was younger. He opened the shoji screen to the room across the hall from Minori’s and three futons were prepared, Minori sitting at a low table in the corner with a book in front of her as she waited for them.

“You guys don’t get to sleep until I say so.”

All three of them sighed at her words, but continued forward to the table, math textbooks already set up at it.

As Ushijima took his spot to the left of her, he noticed that the ends of her hair were damp, she must have recently gotten out of the bath as well. The fringe that normally hung and covered her forehead had been clipped up…

“Eyes on your work Tendo.”

Ushijima also turned back to the practice test, not wanting to be called out as well. 

  
  
Ushijima woke early, not stopping his regular routine of running in the morning.

When he was sitting in the entryway, putting his sneakers on, he jumped when a soft hand touched his shoulder. He turned quickly to see Shizaraki-san smiling at him.

“You are,” the woman lowered her brow as she focused on her words. “U-shi-ji-ma yes?”

He nodded to the older woman.

She smiled even bigger and patted his shoulder. When her hands moved away from him, she signed. He looked confused but the she just smiled at him as she rose and turned away.

The ace thought about the gesture that she had given him all throughout his run. Memorizing it as he rushed through his run and returned to the ryokan.

Minori was sitting in her room with the shoji screen open. He almost passed, but stopped and went in and sat close to her. She didn’t even look up from her book as she said, “Ohaiyo Ushijima.”

“Ohaiyo,” he repeated. They both stayed silent until he broke it with “What does this mean?”

Minori looked up and over to him as he made the sign that her mother had this morning. “It’s ‘good luck’,” she turned back to her book and turned the page. “Mama likes watching high school volleyball.”

Ushijima stayed silent, and almost jumped when Minori spoke again.

“You’ll pass the exams,” she said quietly, closing her book with a quiet ‘thump’. She turned to smile at him. “I know you will.”

He bowed his head. “Thank you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Ushijima looked down at the test in front of him. His first order of business after class was to run to the gym to show Washijo-sensei.

The coach gave him a nod, “100 serves when you get to practice today Ushijima.”

The ace bowed to him. No one would be able to tell how happy and excited he was because his face still looked stoic and unemotional.

Once he had shown his coach, he wanted to seek out another person, but didn’t know exactly where to find them.

He was heading back to class to find Eita, but passed by a familiar figure resting on a bench with a book covering her face. He stopped by the bench and tried to contain his excitement.

“Shizaraki-san.”

The girl didn’t move, but quietly said. “Ushijima.”

He pushed the test in his hand toward her. Without taking the book off her face, she grabbed for the paper. When it was closer to her face she finally lifted the book a small bit to look at the top of the page, the number circled in red.

Wakatoshi watched as the girl gave him a small smile, handed him back his test, and quietly said “Good job Ushijima.”

She didn’t see, but he gave her a small smile.

“See you at the library later?” Minori asked as she continued to lie on the bench.

“After practice yes.”

She gave him a thumbs up and the taller teen continued on his way to go show his friends. 

Minori was smiling at the taiyaki that Tendo handed over, their deal still very much in place.

“Congratulations,” she told everyone as she took a massive bite. All the boys, don’t think that she really cared that they had passed so much as she still got her sweets. “So what is the new schedule going to look like boys?”

Eita spoke up. “We have practice every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.”

She took another bite. “Looks like you guys are going to be getting homework then.”

Tendo and Eita sighed and groaned.

“We get homework already,” Tendo whined. “Why do we have to get tutoring homework as well?”

Minori ignored their annoying voices, “I mean, I could just leave you guys be. Good luck with the next semester…. Oh…” she pointed to the ceiling. “And good luck with the next two years of high school as well.”

Ignoring the looks she was getting, she went back to enjoying the taiyaki.

Eita sighed and held his hand out and Minori handed him a stack of papers. He pulled the papers to him and took in the weight, “Really Ori-chan?”

She nodded, “You get what you need, and you need a lot mister fifty-two.”

Tendo looked over at his friend. “You got a fifty-two!”

Minori handed an even larger stack to Tendo. “He sure did fifty. You barely made it, so you better finish this. No slacking.”

The red-head grunted, but accepted the stack of papers.

Minori smiled as she handed the final stack of papers to her left. Ushijima took them from her and slightly bowed his head. “Good job sixty-one.”

Both Eita and Satori were confused and astonished while Ushijima gave his tutor the smallest of smiles. She stood once she had handed out their packets and began to gather her things. “You know boys,” she looked over at the two who still had open mouths. “Maybe you guys should review the basics as well.”

Before leaving the three volleyball players, she took the final bite of her taiyaki. When she turned to leave, the setter and middle blocker rushed out of their seats to follow her.

“Ori-chan I need the basics too!”

“Shizaraki what if I gave you two taiyakis a day?!”

Ushijima stayed seated after watching his friend’s antics, and started looking through the math problems. There was a small note stuck onto the corner of the third page of the packet. A hand-drawn kitten giving a thumbs up, and in small neat script underneath were the words “Good Luck”.

Months passed and with volleyball tournaments and camps, the boys fell off their study regimen.

Minori didn’t care too much, she returned to her old schedule, missing the treats, but not much else.

When the second year of high school came around, once boys were threatened to be taken off the team, they once again sought out Minori. Tendo amped his flirting up, and that was the year he received a book to the face. Once the boys had passed mid-term exams, it was Minori this time that seemed to have a much busier schedule and so called off the tutoring sessions. The boys once again, were too invested in volleyball to even notice when the tutor stopped assigning them homework or giving a last minute excuse as to why she wouldn’t be able to help them study on a certain day. 

Time flew by and they all moved on. 


	5. Chapter 5

It was third year and somehow Washijo stood in front of a familiar scene.

Ushijima didn’t even bother to look up. He knew what this was going to be about. He had already berated himself for falling behind, but he wanted to put his all into his last year of high school volleyball.

Tendo whistled while he looked at the ceiling.

Eita sat with a tired look on his face, knowing the way the conversation would go after Washijo berated them.

“Spring tournament is in two weeks,” Washjo said as he crumpled up the papers he held. “You have until next week to get them up or…” Washijo-sensei gave them the scariest look the three young men had ever seen. He didn’t even bother to finish his sentence as he stormed out of the gym. He was pissed, these idiots were going to cost him another chance at the Nationals.

“How are you so good at volleyball but so bad at math?!” The coach came back into the gym after the boys had thought they were out of the woods. “I don’t care if you aren’t going to play! One Hundred serves and one hundred receives RIGHT NOW!”

The guys all stood and rushed over to the cart of balls as if their life depended on it.

Ushijima was hitting especially hard, taking his frustration at himself out on the ball and the floor of the court.

By the time they had finished their punishment, he was sweating and breathing heavily. He still felt like he had energy to burn however.

Before letting the idiots leave, Washijo made sure to knock each of them upside the head when they bowed. He left them grumbling to himself, stomping off as he had done earlier.

Tendo quickly looked over to Semi, with a questioning look in his eye.

Eita sighed. “She wasn’t happy when we did this to her last year.” He turned to his friends his face dark and serious. “Ori-chan distinctly said if it happened again, and I quote… ‘I won’t be around to dig your asses out.’”

Tendo squinted his eyes and looked at his teammate. “I bet I can get her to change her mind…”

Both the other guys turned that down quickly.

“NO.”

“Do you want to make it worse?”

The comment did give Semi an idea though. He looked over to the team’s star player and knew that if he pulled out this card, he would be on the line of losing one of his best friends.

“I can convince her,” he sighed, already feeling a sharp pain in his gut. “You guys have to stay here though.” Tendo’s eyebrows rose. “I KNEW IT! GO GET HER TIGER!”

Eita looked disgusted. “No,” was all he said as he left the gym. Before fully leaving though, he turned back around and pointed sternly at Tendo. “Just no.”

When the blond was finally out of the gym, the red-head elbowed his taller teammate. “Eita totally has the hots for her.”

Semi Eita didn’t think that was a coward.

As he stood in front of room 403 in the girl’s dorms however, he had never felt more cowardly.

This was to help his friends, and he knew that. Shirabu had already taken his place as the team’s setter and he was really only used as a pinch server

Ushijima and Tendo however…

He knocked on the door in front of him.

A girl almost as tall as him answered the door, her straight brown hair pulled up into a high ponytail. When she saw Semi she smiled. “Semisemi!”

Eita recoiled at the nickname that has gotten around the school. “Kumi-chan,” he tried to look around the girl but she continued to block him. Her smile grew even wider and her demeanor more…coy.

Ah crap, he thought, another volleyball fan girl. He sighed wearily as he pinched his nose. “Is Ori-chan here?”

Kumi pouted, but her antics were interrupted by a familiar voice raised in anger.

“This had BETTER NOT be what I think it is.”

“Ori-chan can we talk?” He looked at Kumi who had still not moved. “In private?”

He heard the scrapping of a chair and some fumbling. Before long the short, curly haired third year went under her roommate’s arm and grabbed her friend by the arm.

“We are going to get dango and you are buying.”

The girl didn’t speak nor look at him as they walked to the small bakery close to the school grounds. Eita couldn’t take it any longer after they had bought the desserts and started to head back to the dorms. He couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Ori…”

“No Tata.”

“But…”

“You know what I told you last time. The answer is no.”

“If you don’t help us I am going to tell Wakatoshi.”

Minori stopped dead in her tracks, with Eita’s longer legs it wasn’t more than two steps before he stood right behind her. The girl was looking at the ground her eyes wide.

Eita was about to say something when one of his best friends sent a sharp elbow into his gut.

She walked forward and turned towards him as he bent over in pain. “Do you want to say that again?”

“Look,” he coughed around his pain and tried to straighten. “I’m not asking for myself. We both know that Tendo and Ushijima are staples to the team…”

He looked at her, ignoring her glare. “If they don’t play in the Spring Tournament…”

“So what,” she nearly shouted. “Why would I care about stupid volleyball?”

“Because he does Minori.”

The short girl lowered her brow but didn’t say anything this time, giving Eita another chance to speak.

“I know you like him Ori. I noticed it last year, it’s why I knew you wouldn’t agree to tutor us again,” the taller teen finally stood back up to his full height. “You didn’t want to spend more time with him in case he found out.”

Minori was still looking at the ground biting her cheek.

Eita knew he was right, and he hated doing this to his friend. He walked over to be in front of her again bending down slightly and took her hand in his. “He is a volleyball idiot you know.”

“I know,” she finally spoke again.

“He won’t find out.”

“I’m more worried about that Guess Monster figuring it out,” she looked up at him. “I mean you’re dumber than a bag of bricks and figured out out and he ‘reads’ people.”

Semi winced a bit at that dig. “I won’t let him find out.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh really, and how are you going to do that?”

“We’ll just have private lessons with you.”

Minori stared after her friend as he walked back towards school, maybe imagining a _private_ session with the captain in her head. A blush dusted her cheeks and she took the final bite of her sweet. He chuckled when he noticed she wasn’t following. “Don’t say I never did anything for you Ori-chan.”

“The only thing you ever did was give me a headache…”

“And so much candy that you were sick the next day.”

“Yeah, glad Father never figured out about that.”

By the time they had gotten back to the school grounds MInori was smiling. He dropped her off at the front of the girl’s dorms but was still wary as he asked, “So?”

“So you’re an asshole for holding that against me.” She glared at him. “But I’ll do it.”

Eita smiled, “That’s why you’re the best Ori-chan.”

She waved him off and turned back to door, calling over her shoulder before he left. “We work on my schedule by the way. I’ll text you.”

Eita honestly didn’t care, he had a pep in his step as he went back to his own dorm.

Satori was pacing the front of the dorms while Wakatoshi just stood by the doors. Both were waiting for their teammate to return. 

“Do you even see her around anymore?” Tendo asked as he paced. “Like in between classes?” Wakatoshi nodded, “Every now and then.”

Tendo sighed and looked up at the night sky. “She still hates it when I flirt with her you know…” he chuckled. “I think I’m wearing her down though.”

Ushijima said nothing, but perked up as he saw Eita coming. Tendo turned around when he saw Ushijima standing straighter.

“Semisemi? Well?”

Eita smiled and Satori through his arms around the blond. “Tata-kun you are amazing, a god upon this earth!”

“There’s just one thing though, she won’t tutor all three of us at the same time. We have to take turns and go once a week, on her schedule…” he looked at his phone but hadn’t gotten anything from her yet. “Which I am guessing will be sent to me tomorrow.”

Satori let out a whoop. “She’ll tutor us AND I get alone time with the mathematics goddess? What have I done to be blessed with such good karma?”

Eita winced. He hadn’t thought about that part, but he knew that Minori would be able to handle herself.

Volleyball idiot or not, Wakatoshi furrowed his brow. “Would it not be less time consuming for her to teach us all at once?”

Eita shrugged, not really expecting Ushijima to question it. “Those were her rules. I’ll take what I can get at this point.”

The ace seemed to let it go and just nodded. He thought back to the question Tendo had asked just a minute ago. Wakatoshi had seen the small girl a few times, being in different classes made it hard for them to run into each other, but occasionally he found himself seeking her out in the cantina.

It was funny that he had never caught her staring at him though. 


	6. Chapter 6

“I want to go first!”

Tendo shouted as he looked over Semi’s shoulder at the text of Shizaraki’s schedule. 

"Time alone with Ori-chan.” The red-head sighed. “My sweet little sugar mathematician.”

As the red-head skipped away, Semi and Ushijima looked over everything.

“It looks like our best bet will be to switch off on Tuesdays,” Semi thought. “We have practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she goes to cram school Thursdays…”

“What about Saturday? We don’t have practice since they give us more time as third-years to study.” Ushijima asked.

Eita typed out the question and the answer came back shortly after.

“It will have to be at her house if that’s the case. She is helping out at the ryokan on Sundays now, she leaves right after classes and club on Saturday and comes back Monday morning.”

Ushijima hummed, but thought back to the onsen. He wouldn’t mind spending a few weekends there. Last year they were all practically regulars, and both Tendo and Ushijima had picked up a little bit of sign language to communicate with Shizaraki-san.

“A weekend alone with Ori-chan,” Tendo smiled. “You know I think I can wai…”

“Saturdays are best for me,” Ushijima stated quickly. “Tuesdays I go to the gym after classes.” 

Neither Tendo or Semi argued with that. The volleyball idiot wasn’t very good at modifying his schedule. “Alright,” Eita said, “Ushijima gets Saturdays and me and you will trade off on Tuesdays.”

Tendo pouted, “Ushijima gets ALL Saturdays?”

Semi looked at the red-head, “He needs the most help Tendo…” He looked over to the captain. “No offense.”

Ushijima shook his head. “No it is true.”

“Well,” Tendo shrugged, “I want to go first and so will go with her tomorrow.” He continued to grin as he started to head off. “Guess I’ll need to go get some taiyaki!”

Semi shouted after him as he was walking off, “She says same spot in the library!”

Tendo waved over his shoulder, letting him know that he heard him.

Ushijima was still looking at the screen of Semi’s phone. Something catching his eye. “Shizaraki attends tea ceremony?”

Eita didn’t look back at him, but locked his phone and put it back in the pocket of his trousers. “And flower arrangement. Her father is very traditional.”

They started walking over to the dorms, “She hates it though, everyone in her classes make fun of her hair since it doesn’t seem to stay in the traditional hairstyles.” He smiled at the memory of her getting frustrated one day before her class and just throwing her hands up and running out the room to make it on time.

“She’s really good though, some of her arrangements have won competitions…”

Ushijima hummed, and the two of them continued on.

“Tendo.”

The red-head smiled down at the dark haired girl in front of him. “Minori-chan….”

“Who said you could use my first name?”

His smile widened. “Shizaraki-chan, you never change,” he grin grew wider, “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Her frown deepened. “Open your book Tendo.”

“Your glasses are lovely by the way. Complete the sexy smart look you have going for you.”

She took off said glasses and stared coldly at him. “If you do not shut up and open that damn book right now, no amount of sweets will convince me to tutor you ever again.”

Satori smiled, but opened the textbook, stopping the flirting for today to pay attention to the instructions that Minori gave him.

“Oh Tendo,” she sighed placing her forehead in her hand as she stared down at the paper. “Did you just forget everything that we studied last year?”

He wasn’t smiling anymore, in fact he was looking sheepishly at the ground. “Once they start throwing in more letters and those small numbers and those weird symbols, it just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

She sighed, but handed him the paper back. “Ok Tendo,” she sat back and crossed her arms as she stared coldly at him. “I am going to speak your language ok?”

His eyebrow rose in question and he waited for her to continue.

“You have two weeks to improve or you don’t get to compete in the Spring Tournament.”

His shoulders came up and his gaze averted back to the ground.

She sighed heavily before she said her next words, taking a bite of the strawberry pocky he had brought as payment for the tutoring. “If you pass the exam next week,” she closed her eyes. “I will go to your tournament and cheer you on.”

Tendo stood from his seat and bent over the table to get in her face. “YOU MEAN IT?!”

“Tendo you have to pass, don’t get too excited.”

“Are you kidding? I’m all pumped up now!” He closed his eyes and gave her a huge smile, “Once you see how awesome I am, I have no doubt you’ll fall head over heels for me.” He ran his fingers through his hair and gave her a sideways glance meant to be sultry, but she ignored it.

“Now,” she pushed the book in front of him once again. “The quadratic equation…”

  
  
Both Eita and Wakatoshi couldn’t help but notice the mood that Satori was in at practice the other day.

While he was normally blasé and only played hard when Washijo got on to him, he seemed to be in top form today.

Eita caught him during a break, breathing heavily as he bent over his knees. “What’s gotten in to you today?”

Satori gave him the biggest grin. “Oh nothing, just want to make sure I’m in top form for the tournament.”

He pushed himself up and grinned even wider, “Especially since I will have an angel in the stands cheering for me.”

“Do what now?”

“Our darling Ori-chan agreed to come watch me play if I passed the exam next week.”

Eita rose his eyebrow. “Tendo you know you don’t have another study session with her before the exam right?”

“That’s why I am going to be studying all week, and completely surprise her.” The middle blocker smiled wide again, “And once she see’s how great I am, well boys…” He stretched his arms behind his head. “It will only be a matter of time before she agrees to go out with me.”

“Yeah,” Eita interrupted his friends daydream. “You know that’s not going to happen right?”

“I agree with Semi,” Ushijima stated. Eita tried not to glance over at Wakatoshi, knowing exactly where his childhood friend’s interests lied. “She doesn’t seem very fond of you.”

“Ah but tsundere characters are always my favorite.”

“GET BACK ON THE COURT YOU IDIOTS!”

The boys straightened and listened to the coach, knowing they were already walking a thin line with him.

Wakatoshi grabbed the duffel bag he was using to carry his overnight clothes. Tendo glared at him from the top bunk. “Lucky bastard,” he grumbled. “Don’t forget the candy.”

The ace nodded, and grabbed a box of the Crayon Shin Chan Chocolate Biscuits he remember she was very fond of. “I shall see you Monday then.”

Tendo rolled over to face the wall. “Yeah whatever.”

The captain stared at his teammate for a moment before making his way out the door. “Good luck with your studying Satori.”

The red-head waved from the bed “Have fun with my goddess Toshi.”

It didn’t take long for him to find Shizaraki waiting in front of the school gates, but his eyes widened when he spotted her.

He remembered on Eita’s phone that she had tea ceremony club after classes. She must have not bothered to change before heading home.

She was bent over her phone, her hair up in what Ushijima remembered Eita saying must have taken all her patience.

Her pale neck was on display as the collar was worn traditionally.

Almost as if she sensed she was being watched, she lifted her head from her phone and turned behind her to see Ushijima standing there.

“Ready?” She asked, showing the screen of her phone. “The next bus is about three minutes away.”

Ushijima nodded and walked up to her, automatically realizing, that the extra centimeters he had grown over the past year made her seem so much smaller than she had last year. She seemed to realize the same thing as she sharpened her gaze at him.

“Geez, stop growing already will you.”

He didn’t have anything to comment on that. They waited the minutes in silence until the bus arrived, Minori bent her knees to kneel down and pulled the sleeve of her Iro Moji aside as she made to grab her backpack. When Ushijima realized what she was doing though, he grabbed the bag and held it with his own. Again she gave him a sharp stare.

“I am perfectly capable of carrying my own bag Ushijima.”

“I am aware,” he looked down at her. “The obi is a bit constricting though, is it not.”

She pouted but didn’t say anything as she walked up the steps of the bus.

As they rode the bus, the two of them remained silent again. It wasn’t awkward though, so much as neither one of them cared to say anything that didn’t need to be said.

When she held her hand on front of him, he was confused.

“Let me see your last exam,” she didn’t look at him. He nodded and pulled the papers out of his bag, handing them over with a frown. He realized once she took them, that feeling of embarrassment came though again.

In the bright light provided by the bus, she looked over the paper almost covered in red. Frowning at certain parts, Ushijima turned away.

“All things considered,” she said quietly, “You don’t seem to be doing to bad. You remember the basics of how the equations work, you just are having issues with applying the new formulas.”

She turned to look at him with a small smile, “Tendo said once you throw the weird symbols in there it doesn’t make sense… Does that sound about right?”

Ushijima nodded but still looked in the opposite direction, not making eye contact with her. He nearly jumped when he felt the pat on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I think you may be an easier fix than Tendo.” He noticed her give a small smile. “And you pay attention better than Tendo too.”

He remembered something just then, something Tendo said. “Did you really tell Tendo that if he passed…” he looked her straight in the eye, “that you would attend the tournament?” She looked forward and bit her cheek. “I did…I may have done so because I don’t think he can do it…” she smirked and looked over at him. “Don’t tell him that though.”

Ushijima looked at her for a long moment, but looked away as he spoke next. “May I make the same deal?”

“Hm?” Minori looked over at the volleyball player, something akin to horror in her eyes.

“If I pass the test,” he shifted his gaze to look at her out of the corner of his eye. To anyone else it may have seemed intimidating, but Minori knew better. “Will you come to the tournament?”

Minori took a deep breathe and looked out the window of the bus, seeing that they were almost to their stop. “Is that what you want Ushijima?”

He looked down at her, drawn again to the pale stretch of neck the kimono allowed to be on display. He thought of hearing her quiet voice, now yelling out, cheering for him.

He looked away from her again as he answered. “Yes, I think I would like that.”

She sighed heavily and pulled the cord above her to let the bus driver know that she wanted to get off at the next stop.

“Well then,” she said as they prepared to stand “I guess we will see then.”

After they had departed and where taking the short walk to the ryokan she called home, Ushijima remembered something.

“Oh,” he said, unzipping and searching through his bag, pulling out a bright green box with a pink dinosaur a moment later. “Here.”

She took the cookies, but instead of opening them and eating them immediately, he was surprised to see her put them in the bag he was still caring for her.

“You aren’t going to eat them right….”

“My father is home this weekend. He isn’t fond of sweets,” she gave him a sad smile as she returned to his side. “I will save them for next week when I get back to school.”

Ushijima’s eyes widened, he remembered what Semi had told him, about the lack of sugar in the girl’s childhood. Then he realized the other words she had said. “Your father is home?”

It was the first time that he had actually been here when her father had been home. Even as often as he had been there, her father had always seemed an absent figure, much like his own.

“Mm,” she acknowledged. “Don’t worry you probably won’t see much of him.”

Wakatoshi was still on edge now. He was meeting the girl’s father.

He hoped that he made a good impression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> side note: I may be posting so many chapters in a short time because I already wrote like 22K words -_-
> 
> Also: rating may change in the next chapter


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to up the rating on this one.....just in case

“Konbanwa,” both of the teens said as they entered the ryokan. As always Minori’s mother was there to great them.

This time however, Ushijima stilled as he saw a man standing by her side. He was taller than both his wife and daughter, but would not be considered tall by any means of the word. His hair was the same dark color as his daughter’s and he wore wire-rimmed glasses that gave him a distinguished look, like a professor of sorts. Unlike his wife beside him, he wore western style clothes, trousers and a tweed jacket only continuing with the scholarly energy that radiated from him. 

“Father,” Minori bowed to him. “Mama,” she said as she also bowed and signed to the woman who had not changed at all over the years. The blonde curly haired woman stepped forward to hug her daughter and waved at the tall volleyball player.

“U-shi-ji-ma,” the familiar woman said as she signed her greeting to him. ‘Good to see you again.’

He nodded to her bowing to both her and the man.

“Father, this is Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

“I am aware,” the man had a stern voice, but Ushijima watched as his gaze turned softer upon his daughter, and he also pulled her into a hug. “The volleyball player that you have been tutoring throughout high school, one of Eita-kun’s friends.”

Her mother was signing away at her father and he responded in kind, talking with his signs as Minori was known to do as well. “Yes dear, I know he is an up and coming star,” the man seemed to sigh. “Every time Shiratorizawa plays you have to watch on the television.”

Minori cleared her throat. “We are going head out and get started then.” She bowed once more and her mother signed to her with a worried look on her face.

“Yes I can undo the obi knot,” she said. “Thank you Mama.”

Her father eyed the volleyball player as he followed his daughter down the hall.

“Ushijima.”

The tall teen turned and looked at the older man.

“Dinner will be ready in an hour. Let Minori know.” With that the older man disappeared down a different hall and Ushijima continued to follow Minori into her bedroom.

It didn’t take her long to get all the text books out. She didn't even bother changing out of her kimono, she got right down to business. As always, she sat to his right.

He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the glasses that she wore as she was looking over and helping him with the math problems.

“When did you get those glasses?” He had tried to ask at one point.

“Focus Ushijima,” was all that she had given him in reply. He listened with a sigh and turned back to the problems in front of him.

The hour seemed shorter than it had been and they were both shocked when Minori’s mother opened the shoji screen, signing that dinner was ready.

“Since father is here, we are going to eat in the formal dining room tonight.” She rose from the table and waited for Ushijima to do the same. “Follow me.”

He did, standing up himself from the low table, accidentally knocking one of his long legs against it in the process. He frowned, but it didn’t hurt so much as he was reminded of his own traditional home and how he never seem to fit there.

Minori waited for him in the hall, and surprised him when she grabbed him by the wrist.

She kept face straight ahead, knowing she blushed when she grabbed him, but not wanting him to get lost in the maze of corridors that all looked the same.

When she came to the screen that separated them from the dining room, she stopped abruptly, Ushijima almost knocking into her. He was barely a hair’s breadth away from her and he felt the cold as she knelt down quickly, sighing and closing her eyes before she pushed the long sleeve of her kimono up and slid the screen open.

Once the room was in their sights, Ushijima was surprised again as he watched Minori bow low above her knees. Ushijima followed suit, dropping into a seiza and bowing. He watched as Minori looked over at him surprised.

“Ushijima,” her father started. “There is no need for that, you are a guest here.”

Ushijima rose his head, but kept a gaze on Minori who stayed down. She scooted forward a bit, bowed down again and only then rose to take her seat at the table. Once she was there, her mother began signing to her.

Wakatoshi followed sitting at the only spot on the table, opposite Minori, but her parents on either side.

Minori’s father bowed nodded to his wife, who stopped signing to her daughter and nodded back to him, grabbing and holding her own kimono sleeve as she removed the lids of food in front of them.

The women looked at the man at the head of the table and waited for him to grab the first part of food. Ushijima followed them, but didn’t understand as Minori’s father looked to him.

Eventually it occurred to him that they were all waiting on him, and so he grabbed something and placed it into the bowl before him.

The entire dinner was giving him more stress than any math class. He thought that his family was traditional…

“Minori.”

The girl in front of him, paused the bite that was on the way to her mouth, waiting for her father to continue.

“Some of the guests have requested to attend a tea ceremony.”

Wakatoshi saw her take a deep breath, close her eyes and bite her cheek. “Of course father. I will prepare everything and have it ready tomorrow morning.”

Ushijima could put away quite a bit of food, but he didn’t want to stay any longer in this room than he had to. Minori herself seemed to eat very little.

Sara Shizaraki surprised everyone when she spoke.

“Darling,” she smiled at the man across from her. “Children need study now.”

The patriarch nodded, you are excused. Before the high schoolers could exit though, Ushijima was called back.

“Feel free to use the onsen as you wish,” the man didn’t look at him and continued to grab food from the dishes before him. “It is good for the muscles and you have a tournament coming up no?”

Ushijima nodded, and bowed before leaving.

Once back in Minori’s bedroom, Ushijima could not seem to sit still.

Minori looked at him above her glasses…”Ushijima, is there an issue?”

He frowned. “Is your father…?”

“Yes.” She didn’t even let him finish, she knew what he was going to ask. “His family has owned the ryokan for generations.”

Minori huffed and cleared her throat, not meeting his gaze even though she felt it on her. “He simply raised me in the way he was raised.”

Ushijima’s brow furrowed, he didn’t even realize the question that he was asking. “Your mother is foreign…”

He stopped when he saw the look in her eyes, something that told him he should stop now.

“Let’s focus back on this,” she said quietly, looking back down to the papers before them.   


  
Ushijima folded himself over the edge of the bath as he thought of the last few hours, reviewing the formulas that he needed to memorize.

He was distracted however whenever images of Minori in her kimono came back. For some reason, he realized that she looked…

“Pretty.”

His eyes widened as he realized he had said it out loud. He stood from the water quickly realizing that perhaps it was the heat of the water that was causing him to stray away from the formulas he knew he must memorize.

As he toweled off, he grabbed the yukata that was provided for all guests of the ryokan. He threw it on and tied it shut, not caring much that it wasn’t as long as it probably should have been, only reaching to his knees.

Ushijima walked the halls to the room that he always stayed in while here, the room straight across from Minori’s. She had stated that she was done for the night and that the two of them should get ready for bed, telling him that they would pick up tomorrow in between her tea ceremony for the guests.

He was thrown when the shoji screen to her room flew open and was unprepared when she collided with him. Minori being much lighter, was the one to fall back onto the tatami.

“Ushijima,” she said looking up at him in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

She actually held her breath when she realized who she had run into in her haste to get outside for a moment.

Minori wasn’t blind. In the brief glance, she realized how much broader his shoulders had grown since last year, and how solid he was. She had noticed earlier as well that Ushijima was slowly transforming from a youth into a man…but with the crush she was already trying to hide, she had to remind herself not to stare and look at him for too long for fear of giving herself away.

Movement in her periphery cause her to look back in front of her. The ace was holding his hand out to her to help her up. She accepted his hand, but wasn’t quite ready for the force in which he pulled her up.

Neither apparently was Ushijima.

She crashed into his chest and was going to find herself back on the floor from the recoil, but Ushijima smoothly grabbed her around the waist and held her up.

Minori didn’t breathe.

Every muscle in her body was tight.

She didn’t move.

Her eyes were wide, and she couldn’t bring herself to look up at his face.

Ushijima was the first to move. He took a step back, but kept a steady hand on her waist to steady her.

“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time. It was good that neither of them were looking at each other because both of their faces were red.

She backed up once she had her footing and found herself naturally bowing. “Ushijima.”

He bowed to her as well, side stepping and sliding into the room he was staying in. Minori, while she was heading to another place in the house, also slid back into her own room.

Once the door slid shut she sunk to the floor, leaning against the shoji. Her head fell into her knees as she folded into herself.

Her phone pinged on the table where the textbooks were still opened. She took a few breaths, and stood grabbing her phone and looking at the message.

Eita had texted her. _Well?_

She put the phone into her lap as she sat down onto her futon, thinking about how to respond.

_Tata, this was a bad idea._

_What do you mean? Are you going to stop tutoring him?_

_No, but who decided that he should be the one to come home with me on the weekend?!_

_… Ushijima himself requested it_

Minori groaned and fell back onto the pillow. She knew that she should head to the bath which is what she had originally meant to do before running face to chest into the ace of Shiratorizawa. However, she didn’t want to leave her room.

Her mind kept running through the few short moments that had just happened in the hallway.

She sighed, pulling the phone closer to her face as she typed.

_Never mind, it’s fine Tata-kun_

She tossed the phone away from her and rolled over, hoping to fall asleep soon…

…But she just couldn’t. She couldn’t stop thinking about being right there so close to Ushijima. She huffed, and taking as much breath into her lungs as she could she stood, shoving the shoji aside and taking the few short steps to the door across from hers.

Here she paused, she knew what she was about to do, what she had in mind couldn’t be taken back once it was done. If she went through with it…

Closing her eyes, Minori shoved the shoji aside.

Ushijima was on the floor positioning the pillows of his futon when she entered. His eyes widened upon seeing her.

“Shizaraki,” he nodded to her, noticing her face his brow lowered in confusion. “Is everything alright?”

She didn’t answer him. Instead she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

One last time she paused before she stepped over towards the volleyball player. When she was right in front if him, she dropped to her knees. Even with both of them sitting, he still had at least 30 centimeters on her if not more.

"Ushi…” Minori stopped herself. “No, Wakatoshi…”

The taller teen’s brow rose, he couldn’t guess what had gotten into the girl before him. She had never called him by his first name before, he was wondering why she choose to now.

Minori bit her lip and before she could chicken out, she leaned up to grab Wakatoshi’s face, her lips molding to his.

She expected him to pull away, and so when his hands grabbed onto her waist and pulled her smaller body into his lap, she let out a gasp.

He didn’t let her lips stray from him for too long however, crashing back into her with enough force to bring them both to the ground. Once she laid on the tatami, Ushijima holding himself above her, his mouth moved away from her lips and traced a line of kisses from her ear down her neck. His nose pushing aside the loosened yukata.

Minori herself was making short work of his clothing, slowly unfolding the yukata to reveal a chest that she felt no teenager should have. She was right about his shoulder’s becoming broader as she ran her hands down them.

She grabbed onto his large biceps tightly when she felt him bite the space beneath her neck and shoulder.

“Minori,” he uttered, and the girl in question couldn’t even describe how wonderful it was to hear her name in his deep voice. She closed her eyes just to enjoy the sensation, reveling in how hot she felt.

The heat he was giving off…

She sat up with a gasp, breathing heavily and covered in sweat.

Minori’s brow furrowed and she was confused for a moment. Was she not just…?

Then it hit her.

It had all been a dream.

She threw her head forward into her hands and groaned, not noticing that her forehead seemed to be warmer than it normally was. She did however realize how sweaty she was, and with the light coming in through the shoji, she knew it would only be a matter of time before her father would want her to preform tea ceremony for the guests.

Minori sighed, knowing that studying with Ushijima was now going to be even more difficult just because she swore that she could still taste him on her lips. She took a deep breath and rose from her futon.

She went throw the motions of putting it away and went to her dresser to grab a kimono to don after her bath. When she had gathered everything, she paused at her door, holding her free hand against it and then resting her forehead on it, closing her eyes in the process.

With one more breath, she knelt to the ground and slid the screen open, going through the motions as if she were already preforming for the guests. 

Across the hallway, Ushijima was also waking.

And he had a problem.

The volleyball player sat up, ignoring the cowlick that was sticking up on the back of his head. Instead all his focus was on the hard morning wood that sat between his legs.

He grunted and furrowed his brow.

It wasn’t that he had never had this issue before, he was a teenager after all, it had been a problem for a while…it was the fact that he couldn’t remember all of the details of the dream that seemed to lead to this situation.

Then there was the fact that he wouldn’t be able to deal with this the way he normally would.

The bath had showers yes, but he would have to make his way there without alerting anyone.

There was also…

But he nixed that idea right away. He was a guest, he would not do that in a place that was not his own.

And so Ushijima Wakatoshi sat there.

He looked up and towards the door, quickly shifting the comforter over his bottom half quickly. However, he heard footsteps heading away from the room. Shizaraki must have been awake as well.

He sighed and looked back down at his lap. Not knowing what to do, he fell back down onto the pillow and just decided to wait until he could calm down.


	8. Chapter 8

Sunday passed by quickly. After tea ceremony, they went back to studying, Minori letting Wakatoshi know that he was doing well. When he brought up her coming to the game again, she just smiled and whispered quietly “We’ll see.”

There was another awkward dinner, but this time Ushijima finished his food quickly. He was still hungry at the end of it, but even as blunt and serious as he was, most things just blowing off of him, the heavy atmosphere in the formal dinner room was just something he could not ignore.

Monday morning came and both students bowed to Minori’s parents before leaving. Sara-san looked worried however, looking at her daughter before the two left. He saw her sign to Minori asking if she was ok. Minori seemed confused and signed back ‘I’m fine’.

As they boarded the bus back to the school, it was much more crowded than it had been when they had come to the ryokan on Saturday. They both ended up needing to stand.

Ushijima noticed that Minori’s face a little flushed, but he realized that being short kept her closer to more of the body heat and she was probably just hot from the crowd of people around her.

They parted ways at the front gates, Ushijima giving her a nod before leaving for class.

She waved, “See you Saturday Ushijima.”

He paused, watching as she walked away. His brow furrowed, for some reason it seemed like she was walking…strangely. Like she was stretching out her right side, and his brow dropped even lower as she rubbed at the side.

Something was gnawing at him to go say something, but at the same moment, he felt a heavy weight on his shoulder.

“Well how was your weekend with the lovely Ori-chan?”

Ushijima looked over his shoulder at Tendo who had jumped on his back, Semi was not far behind him, rolling his eyes at their red-headed friends antics. The ace frowned.

“Her father…”

Before he could finish Semi interrupted. “Her father was there?”

Ushijima nodded. Semi came over and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I don’t envy you there. Her father is…”

It seemed like both teens were at a lost for words on how to describe the small girl’s father.

The bell rang before they could say anything else and all three of them headed to class.

The trio were very confused as they ran into a familiar face on their way to practice.

They noticed the kimono first, then the blonde curly hair that was flowing behind the woman as she swiveled her head back and forth.

Eita ran up to her, touching Shizaraki-san’s shoulder to get her attention. Tendo and Ushijima noticed how wide her eyes were when she turned and they made their way over.

Her hands were moving quickly and Eita’s brow furrowed as she pushed her phone into his hands. While he was scrolling through the phone, he asked “Ushijima…have you seen Minori since this morning?”

He frowned, “I have not.”

“She hasn’t responded at all to Sara-san,” Eita looked over to his friends. “That is very unusual, which has her worried.”

The blond volleyball player paused for a moment. “Hey, tell Washijo-sensei that I am going to be late…I’m going to the girl’s dorm real quick.”

Ushijima and Tendo looked at each other. “I will come as well,” Ushijima said, throwing absolutely everyone. Volleyball was number one in the teen's mind, the fact that he was putting that aside…

“She was acting…strange this morning.”

Ushijima looked at the small woman in front of him. He remembered her asking Minori if she was alright before they left the ryokan this morning. Could she tell something was wrong by instinct?

Tendo sighed, “FINE! I’ll take Washijo-sensei’s wrath, telling him his star ace is going to be late.”

Before the group headed off to the dorms, Tendo grabbed Wakatoshi’s arm. “Make sure that my dear Ori-chan is alright ok?”

Ushijima nodded and then turned to follow the other two. 

Eita knocked on the door of Minori’s room.

Shizaraki was typing on her phone, trying to get a hold of her daughter again.

Neither of them were able to get a response.

“Ushiwaka?”

The boys turned when they heard a high pitched voice. Kumi, Minori’s roommate stood in the hall a few feet away from them. She gave the tall ace a very coy smile. “What brings you to the girl’s dorm, hmmm?”

“Kumi-chan, have you heard from or seen Ori-chan at all.”

The tall girl turned to Semi, and looked around him to the small blonde woman in a kimono. “Uh…what’s going on?”

Eita sighed, “Can you just unlock the door and let us in?”

Kumi held her hands up, and walked over to the door. Not fooling anyone when she “accidentally” brushed against Ushijima.

Once she opened the door, they all noticed that the room was dark. Kumi walked in and turned on the light.

The room was empty.

Shizaraki’s phone started blinking with a bright light. She looked down at it and gasped. She showed it to Eita who’s eyes grew wide. Wakatoshi read over his shoulder.

_Sara, we just got a call from the school. Minori is in the infirmary and very sick. They want to know if we want to…_

Ushijima stopped reading and turned to head back to the front of the dorms. Shizaraki-san was not far behind him at a slower pace, her legs not as long as his.

“Seriously,” they heard Kumi asking Eita before he also turned away. “What is going on?”

“We don’t know but I’ll let you know when we find out.”

When the boys had gotten over to the infirmary, Shizaraki-san ran in front of both of them. The nurse was confused as all of them burst in.

“Where Minori!”

“Calm down Shizaraki-san…” the nurse stood, but Sara was not paying attention and started looking around for her daughter. “Hey…”

Sara started pulling back curtains, confusing some students that were laying in cots.

They finally found Minori, and Sara brought her hand up to her mouth and both of the boys were worried when they saw the tears brimming in the older woman’s eyes.

Ushijima pushed the curtain back even further to see Minori trying to push herself up and sign to her mother.

“Minori,” Eita said quietly. “What’s going on?”

Her face was red, they could all tell that she was sweating with fever. While she had been trying to sit up, they saw the pain in her face, and watched as she just lowered herself back onto the cot, clutching her side and holding back tears of pain.

“She is showing symptoms of appendicitis,” the nurse said from behind. “Shizaraki Satoshi gave us the go ahead to call the hospital and an ambulance is on its way. It would be best to meet them at the gates, but…”

All of them looked at her and didn’t think she would be able to walk anywhere.

Ushijima walked forward and bent down to grab her. The nurse gasped, “Ushijima-kun that may not be…”

As he was situating her, Minori pushed herself away from him and threw up.

Wakatoshi for his part seemed unfazed. Sara was now fully crying and was grabbing for her daughter in the ace's arms.

“Sorry,” Minori said, still leaning away from the volleyball player holding her. He shifted her again so that her weight was better positioned and she was less likely to fall.

“I will take her to the front gate and meet the ambulance,” he looked down at Shizaraki-san who nodded, not knowing exactly what he said, but trusting him with her very sick daughter.

“We will be behind you,” Eita said, grabbing onto to Shizaraki-san’s hand, giving the woman a bit of comfort.

Ushijima nodded once and then quickly turned out of the infirmary, hurrying but trying not to jostle the girl in his arms too much.

“Ushijima,” Minori whispered. “Put me down.”

He didn’t think that even needed a response to it, he wasn’t going to do so until she was in the ambulance.

“I’m sweaty and…”

“I sweat during practice,” he continued to look forward. “It does not bother me.”

She sighed, and he finally felt her muscles un-tense, giving into the fact that she would not be able to sway his mind.

“Thank you,” he heard her barely whisper.

Ushijima looked down for a moment. Minori had closed her eyes, although her face still showed signs that she was in pain.

To keep his mind off of the dangerous situation that she was in, he instead focused on the feeling of her in his arms. He had picked up a few girls before, a couple having been unfortunate enough to be in the path of one of his serves…but Minori seemed much smaller. He knew that she was small, but she felt practically tiny as he carried her. He lifted much more at the gym than what she weighed and so he felt he wasn’t even pushing himself.

Mostly he focused on her heat though, the warmth of her against his chest. He knew it was from the fever, but the additional warmth of her small breaths kept him grounded as he neared the gates, seeing the ambulance already there.

Paramedics rushed his way and soon he was handing over his tutor to them. He saw a flash of blonde hair run past him and into the ambulance. Shizaraki-san holding her daughter’s hand was the last thing that he saw before the doors shut and the ambulance drove off.

Eita stood behind his captain and they both stayed there for a moment. The setter placed a hard hand on the ace’s shoulder.

“We should go to practice,” he said quietly, “there isn’t really anything else WE can do at this point.”

Ushijima nodded, but stayed there for just a moment longer, trying to figure out why there was a stinging in his chest. 

  
  
When they got back to practice, Tendo saw the look on their faces, but Washijo was on them immediately.

“YOU TWO ARE RUNNING LAPS!” He shouted as soon as he saw the two come in. “GET TO IT!”

Everyone noticed as the two ran around the outside of the gym, that their ace and captain seemed to be running even faster than normal. Which was saying something since he normally left them in the dust regardless.

No one wanted to be on the receiving end of his serves during practice either. Instead of just warming up or only using 70% of his power, Ushijima seemed to be using his full strength today.

The display of power, while he was happy to see his star player performing so well, also caused Washijo-sensei worry.

While Semi helped set while the team did spikes, the setter himself seemed to be off. Setting the balls lower or farther away than normal.

All of this affected the rest of the team. Especially the Guess-Monster.

By the time practice was over, Ushijima was panting hard, bending over by the benches to catch his breath. Semi held his water bottle open, but was too distracted by his own thoughts to take a drink. As if remembering something, he pulled his phone out and typed a message.

Tendo was looking at both of them, “Is my angel ok?”

Ushijima pushed himself up and as he wiped his mouth. “She has arthritis,” he turned to his best friend with a hard look. “She had to go to the hospital.”

Tendo looked very confused and so looked to Semi. “Appendicitis,” he corrected.

The red-head’s eyes opened wide. “And you guys just CAME BACK TO PRACTICE?”

Both Semi and Ushijima glared at him. “She was taken to the hospital, there was nothing else we could do.”

“You guys didn’t go to the hospital with her?”

“Tendo I am finding out what hospital she is at right now. Can you be quiet for five minutes?”

Ushijima looked over, there weren’t many times that the blond lost his temper, but his childhood friend had just left in an ambulance

“She is at Tokoyami.”

As soon as he said it, the setter was grabbing his bag and running out the door. It took Ushijima and Tendo a moment, but they had soon grabbed their bags and were heading out behind him.

Ushijima soon overtook Semi, even though he could feel the burning in his legs.

Tokoyami Hospital was only 2 kilometers away from the school, quick work for the athletes.

Regardless as they made their way through the automatic doors, all three of them were breathing heavily. Tendo, ever the drama queen, was groaning and stated “Maybe we should have taken the bus…”

Semi went to the counter asking where Shizaraki Minori was, also typing on his phone.

“She can’t have any visitors…”

Ushijima felt his shoulders tighten as a familiar figure came through the doors. Semi’s face twitched a bit as well.

“They can come.”

The nurse nodded, not knowing what to say to the intimidating man.

As the taller teens made their way over to where the man was, he put his arm up to stop Tendo from going forward.

“And YOU are?”

Tendo blinked. “I’m Ori-chan’s one true love…”

Semi was signaling to Tendo to stop, but not before Shizaraki Satoshi glared at him, opening his mouth to say something…

The red-head was saved however by a small woman that walked forward and put her hand on her husband for a moment. He looked down at her and took a deep breath, letting her grab Tendo’s hand and bringing him forward.

The other teens could tell that Minori’s father was not happy about this, but held his tongue.

All three boys walked into the room that Minori seemed to be sharing with another patient. The two that had seen her before were very surprised to see her sitting up in the bed, reading.

“My goddess!”

Minori sighed and closed her book, she looked over and saw her mother holding the red-head’s hand with a small smile.

“Why did you have to let him in here?” She said as well as signed.

“I was not keen on the idea either,” Satoshi said right behind the tall middle blocker, making him actually jump. “But your mother insisted.”

“You’re too nice to them…” Minori said but did not get much more out of her mouth before Eita was at the side of her hospital bed.

“You seem fine?!”

She nodded, “They gave me pain medication.”

Eita chuckled, “Must be some pretty good stuff.”

Minori shrugged, and they all noticed that she winced. “Takes the edge off.”

“Her surgery will be this evening,” Satoshi spoke again.

Tendo finally went over to Minori’s bedside and grabbed her hand. Satoshi took a step forward, but needn’t do anything more as both Ushijima and Semi had grabbed their friend’s shoulder.

“Easy there buddy,” Eita said quietly just as Minori took her hand back with a frown.

“Appendectomy’s are done all the time,” she picked up her book. “I’ll be fine…Tendo?”

The red-head smiled at her. “Yes my dear Or…Shizaraki-chan.”

She didn’t even look at him as she turned a page, “Please leave, you smell like you came straight from practice.”

Both Tendo and Semi looked into the corner of the room. “We did,” Ushijima said.

Minori blinked and looked up to the captain. “Oh,” she quickly diverted her gaze, “Uh thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I was just so worried for my ang…”

“I believe you boys should go now,” none of the teens questioned the deeper voice of Minori’s father. They all turned to him and saw him glaring and his arms were crossed, having quite enough of the red-head's flirting with his daughter. He saw it as an insult.

Tendo and Eita rose and moved toward the doorway, Ushijima stayed for just a moment longer telling Minori, “It is good to see that you are alright.”

Minori couldn’t help another blush that was appearing on her cheeks, she nodded to him. "Thanks again Ushijima."

He turned back but was surprised to see Minori’s mother in front of him.

She smiled up at him and he watched as she lifted her right hand, turned her palm to the side and bumped it onto her left wrist.

It was a ‘thank you’.

Ushijima nodded to her and she stepped to the side, letting him follow his friends out of the hospital rooms. 


	9. Chapter 9

“No baka.”

Minori smacked the side of Eita’s head.

Eita was back at the hospital, textbooks spread out on Minori’s bed. He was happy that she had told him to get over to the hospital for the study session they had scheduled for Tuesday. When he brought up the fact that she had just had surgery, she told him that they were going to release her the next day. Followed with a link and video of an appendectomy and how “noninvasive” it was.

_FINE FINE, just stop sending this to me_

She sent a devil emoji and told him she requested a visitor badge at the at the front desk.

“What are you doing? That’s not the formula you use?”

“Do you tutor Ushijima like this too?”

She huffed, “Ushijima actually listens, I don’t have to get on to him half as much as you and Tendo.”

“Speaking of, he is super pumped about passing.”

Minori groaned. “Well now he has Ushijima asking the same thing.”

Eita looked up from the book and blinked. “He wants you to come to the tournament too?”

“No not that formula either! Jeez Tata-kun stop asking stupid questions and focus.”

She was explaining through when and how to use the quadratic formula again, when Eita’s phone binged with a text message. Minori glared, angry that he pulled his phone out to check the message. She sighed, crossing her arms and leaning back against the pillows that were situation behind her.

“Ushijima is asking if we can come back to the hospital to see you.” He smirked at her as she blushed and took a deep breath.

“Tell him that you are getting your tutoring session, and they shouldn’t cause distractions.”

His smile grew wider. “Are you SURE you don’t want Ushijima to come over?”

Her cold stare didn’t waver as she sighed. “You need to get back to this and they need to remember that you all have tests in two days.”

Eita’s eyes widened and texted his friend texting quickly.

_Can’t right now, studying._

“Are you done?” Minori said haughtily as she continued to sit with her arms crossed.

Eita looked down with a groan and started trying the math problem again.

Ushijima did a double take as he walked by a bench on his way to the library, trying to get as much studying in before the test he had the next day.

It was the curly hair that made him turn back around. “Shizaraki?”

Minori looked up from her book with a questioning look. “Ushijima.”

“What are you doing out of the hospital?”

She blinked, “I was released this morning.” Turning back down to her book she explained. “They took my appendix out, kept me overnight and then I was good to come back to school.”

He stayed silent for a moment, just looking at her as if he would be able to see something that would allow him get her back into the hospital. He couldn’t deny that she looked absolutely fine though.

“Do you really have time to give me a look over?” She looked back up with a small smile. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”

His eyebrows rose, remembering his task before he had gotten distracted. Ushijima nodded to her and she gave him a small wave as he continued on to the library. 

Tendo had a huge smile and rushed out of the classroom laughing the entire way.

Ushijima looked down at his own test, almost surprised that he had passed with only a week of studying. He looked up and thought about all the times Shizaraki had told him that he could do it, he just got confused. A small smile touched his face, he also stood and made his way out of the classroom.

They weren’t able to find Minori, but did manage to get to Washijo-sensei. The shorter coach nodded at them, but did nothing more.

When Semi showed up as well, and Washijo waved all of the boys off, the red-head and the ace looked to Semi.

“Where is Minori?” Tendo smiled conspiratorially. “She has a bet to keep.”

Semi rolled his eyes but pulled his phone out. “Looks like she headed to cram school already.”

Tendo pouted. “Well, where does she go to cram school at?”

Minori sighed as she packed her bag. She questioned why she kept coming to cram school when she had already taken the entrance exams for the universities that she wanted to go to. Probably just routine at this point...

Walking out of the building, she stopped when she noticed the tall men in front of her.

“What are you guys….?”

All at once, the boys held their tests out for her to see. Tendo laughing and commenting loudly, “Better get your pompoms ready!”

Minori’s eye twitched. Her teeth were gritted as she got out, “Way to go Tendo.”

His smiled widened and he chuckled.

Calming herself and just accepting this fate, she un-clenched her jaw and sighed. “Whelp, I’m going to go get crepes.”

Tendo stuffed the test back in his bag. “Crepes sound great!”

She started walking away, but paused to look back at the two boys that hadn’t moved. “Are you guys coming?”

Putting their tests away as well, the others began to follow after the small girl that had saved their butts yet again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit short, but the next one will be longer


	10. Chapter 10

“Wait YOU are going to game tomorrow?”

Minori’s friend Yaki Haru seemed to be flabbergasted. “But you hate sports. Why the sudden change?”

The shorter girl sighed, the two of them heading to the cantina to get something to eat. “I lost a bet.”

Haru looked up at the ceiling, her finger coming to her chin in thought. “That does sound like something you would do. Was it the red-head? What’s his name?”

“Tendo, and yes it was him…but also…”

Haru looked over at her friend who had gone quiet. “Oh, the one that you have a crush on?”

Minori blushed and grimaced as she looked away. “I should have never told you about that.”

Haru smiled using her longer legs to step in front, “Well, it’s not normally my scene,” she closed her eyes and yawned,”But I guess I’ll come with you.”

The two continued on into the cantina joining the rest of their friends. Minori was halfway through a bite of her tonkatsu when she swore she could feel someone watching her.

She looked up and around, meeting eye contact with Ushijima.

It had almost become a normal occurrence at this point. She even started to feel like he was acting like a mother hen ever since her stint in the hospital. She frowned and because she knew he would know what she was saying, she signed to him.

_I’m fine, stop staring, it’s creepy._

Ushijima looked a little confused at the last one and elbowed Semi, quickly showing him the sign. Minori watched as Eita laughed. 

Once Semi had told him, Ushijima’s brow furrowed. He signed back.

_I’m not creepy._

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her friends, but a moment too late. Haru had seen and did her own elbowing, both boys saw as a cat-eyed girl next to Minori started at them. Once she had their attention, she gave them a sinister smile, not unlike the one Minori had thrown them at times.

Both boys watched as Haru bent and whispered something into their tutor’s ear as well as the reaction Minori had. Her eyes widened and her head swiveled to her friend, who started chuckling. They also saw the blush that appeared as Minori stood and excused herself from the table, pushing her remaining tonkatsu to Haru.

The cat-eyed girl picked up a piece of the fried pork and lifted it in salute to the boys who were still watching.

Minori in the meantime, was speed walking over to her favorite bench outside, popping EarPods in and cranking up the music on her phone. The fast paced and traditional instruments of Wagakki Band quickly filled her ears and she took a deep breath, taking her mind off the comment Haru had just whispered.

_Oh damn, he looks like he would be great in bed._

He face flushed once again.

She shook it off and was soon sitting herself down on the bench, taking a deep sigh and rolling her shoulder. She pulled a book out of her bag then shifted the bag to act as a pillow, also taking a moment to take off her jacket and place it over her legs like a blanket. Leaning back and getting into a comfortable position, she held the book over her face, another English novel too help keep her fresh with the language.

As much as she was focused on translating and reading, she felt her eyes drooping. The sun was warm on her skin and the weather was perfect. Her took a moment to think, her next class was math. Minori let the book rest on her face and she thought to herself that it would be fine if she skipped.

Even the class representative was allowed to skip a class or two from time to time.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Minori surveyed the stands. Blinking at the cheerleaders and the band members that had taken up residence, she almost turned right back around. Haru placed a hand on shoulder and the taller girl steered her friend down to about midway in the stands. “Remember you lost a bet Ori-chan.”

Minori’s nose scrunched in disgust. “This amount of fanfare is just…”

“Too much, yes I agree. Well I was going to make you sit in the front….”

The two of them looked down, a group of girls were gathered in the front section, there wasn’t even enough space to sit, but each of the girls seemed to be holding a sign correlating to the player they were cheering for.

“Ah,” Haru’s eyes narrowed as a smirk came across her face. “Looks like a lot of people are here to cheer on our dearest ace.”

Minori, closed her eyes and tilted her head to rest on her shoulder. “Haru I already hate thiiiiiiiiiiiiis.”

“Shhhhh little Ori-chan. You can still cheer on your man.”

She kept her eyes closed, but furrowed her brow. “That is NOT what I mea….”

“HERE THEY COME!!!”

The two girls sat down, they thankfully found seats on the outside, however the cheerleaders that were on the steps were basically screaming in their ears.

“Aw geez,” Minori finally opened her eyes to take a deep breath. “Did you bring any ibuprofen?”

Haru already had two pills in her hand for her friend, popping two into her mouth as well and passing her soda that she had gotten at the concession stand to her friend once she was done.

“You’re the best.”

Haru smiled, “Oh but do they look good in those shorts Ori-chan.”

Trying to control the blush that was threatening to darken her cheeks, Minori turned to the court finally. She had seen the boys in their practice clothes before, but never in their actual uniforms.

Controlling that blush was a lost cause. It wasn’t just Ushijima that had great legs.

“Man, I should have gotten into this sport earlier,” Haru snickered while she elbowed Minori. “Your friend Semi….man, those arms…”

Minori crossed her arms over her face. “CHILDHOOD FRIEND HARU!”

Haru looked over skeptically, “Are you harboring a crush on another volleyball player Minori?” A sinister smile spread across her face. “I would have never pegged you for a shoujo manga protagonist.”

Minori groaned, but Haru kept going.

“I can see a love triangle on the horizon…”

The smaller girl was saved from her friend’s teasing when they started the opening ceremony. She took an unnoticeable sigh of relief. As much as she loved Haru, her teasing could go a little too far sometimes.

They sat back, listening to comments from other students and watching as the teams started to play. Minori was actually a short little ginger on the other team when the ball seemingly came out of nowhere. She blinked and looked over to the other side of the court, then to Haru. Her friend had her mouth open in shock.

“Uh,” Minori asked, “I was watching the other team…what just happened?”

Haru turned wide-eyed as the crowd shouted Ushijima’s name around them. “Maybe you should watch your man for the next round…”

Minori’s brow lowered but she did as her friend instructed.

When she saw Ushijima’s spike, her mouth mirrored her friend’s.

“So uh,” Haru whispered. “He carried you to the front of the school right?” Minori answered with a nod. “You get a feel of those muscles at all.”

“I was suffering from appendicitis Haru-chan. What do you think?”

“That’s a damn shame Ori-chan.”

They listened to two male students mentioning that the Ushijima was just getting warmed up and both girls rose their brow in curiosity.

“Oi,” Haru said, grabbing the boys attention. “What do mean ‘just getting warmed up’?”

Both boys gave the girls a kind of knowing look. “Oh you guys must be new to watching the games.”

Haru’s eye twitched, “Get on with it.”

The second boy cleared his throat. “Uh, well, Ushiwaka normally hits a lot harder. So right now he is just warming up, seeing how much power he will need to take down the other team.”

Haru nodded, “Got it thanks.”

As she sat back in her seat, the boys still looked at the two girls. They were cute, but both Minori nor Haru were having it.

Minori twirled her finger as she glared. “Turn it back around boys.” Haru just glared.

The two negative reactions to their staring had the boys turning quickly, their shoulders going up in embarrassment.

While Minori still kept looking back over to the other team’s little ginger boy, the number ten who could jump really high, she found herself following Ushijima more and more.

When he was up to serve the first time, she held her breath when the ball hovered in the air.

It smacked the other side of the court and Minori felt a slight shiver go down her spine.

“Damn,” she heard Haru whisper. “Do you think any of the other team members have ever accidentally gotten in the way of that?

The boys in front of them, who may have still been sneaking glances every now and then perked their ears up.

“Uh actually,” one of them said, catching the girls’ attention. “He has sent a lot of teammates to the infirmary.”

The other added on, “A few fan girls too.”

Haru and Minori both blinked at that new information. “Well,” Haru said as she went back to watching the captain serve again. “Remind me not to ever get on Ushijima’s bad side.”

Minori chuckled. “I don’t think Ushijima even knows how to get angry. Worst I’ve seen is frustration at trying to figure out what the Discriminant formula was.”

Haru narrowed her eyes and gave her friend a knowing glance.

“Wait what?” One of the boys in front of them asked.

Minori blinked. “Oh,” she smiled sinisterly and nodded down to the court, “Your hard hitter down there sucks at math.”

The males looked at each other and then back down to the court. “So he his human,” one of them whispered under his breath.

Minori heard it though and giggled to herself. She also needed a reminder that the man she watched on the court was not perfect. 

Minori glared at the court. Knowing the guys in front of them were paying attention, she muttered.

“Geez, do these things normally take this long. People have places to be…”

Just like she expected one of them turned around. She finally took a moment to give the guy a good look over. He had short black hair and freckles dotted his cheeks which were a bit chubby. “Actually, in the prelims they normally win in the first three sets.” He turned back to the court and was trying to go for a more nonchalant look. “Karasuno is giving them a run for their money.”

“Hey what’s your name?”

The guy looked back and looked wide eyed at Minori, who in his opinion looked haughty. His friend by him had lowered his brow in confusion at him.

“Uh, it’s Yuu…Kintataro Yuu.”

Minori nodded, and Yuu felt his heart beat faster for a moment, turning forward quickly so the girl wouldn’t see his blush.

“Kintataro…”

The guy jumped, Haru chuckled as she watched her friend unknowingly played with the guy.

“Do you know how much longer this is supposed to go?”

The guy still didn’t turn back around, and his friend ended up answering instead. “This one is played in five sets since it is going to decide who goes to nationals.”

“Best three out of five,” Haru commented this time. “Laaaaaaaaaaaaaame.”

Meanwhile on the court, Tendo was looking at Shizaraki with a smile again. He had spotted her during their first timeout and even gave a little dance which cause Semi to roll his eyes and Ushijima search the crowd as well.

“Awe,” Tendo continued to smile, but his voice had a pout to it. “I wish she would actually cheer for us.”

Semi handed the middle blocker his water bottle and pat him on the back. “She hates sports,” he sighed. “You are lucky she even showed up.”

“She made a bet.”

“And that’s probably the only reason she is here.”

Ushijima followed his teammate’s gaze to the girl he had found in the bleachers earlier as well. His eyes narrowed to focus, her small stature practically made her impossible to find. He didn’t think he would have if Tendo wasn’t able to lock in on her.

“Eh?” The red-head in question narrowed his gaze into a glare. “Just who do they think they are…”

Ushijima also noticed that their curly haired tutor seemed to be getting chummy with two students in front of her.

Male. Students.

“Oi oi,” Tendo was suddenly looking over at at the members of other team. “You guys better send me good spikes to block. I need to catch someone's attention!”

All of the spikers on the other side jumped and the whistle blew and they were getting ready to go again.

Minori and Haru both jumped when Ushijima spiked a ball into the announcer’s table and when he bumped into Tendo trying to block a ball in the first few sets.

“He got a lot more aggressive,” Minori scrunched her brow, with a little bit of worry.

“He must be feeling the pressure,” Yuu commented.

“Kinda worried about the rest of the people on the court,” Haru commented as she folded her arms and leaned back in the seat. “Even our own players.”

Minori’s thumb actually made its way up to her mouth and she bit it. She could tell the guys were getting tired. When Ushijima was up to serve she made a quick decision.

Haru jumped as her friend stood up.

“KILL IT USHIJIMA!”

Ushijima looked up to the stands and saw Minori, her hands still near her mouth. The tiniest hint of a smile appeared on his face, he suddenly didn’t feel as tired.

“Ah, cheer for me too Ori-chan,” Tendo whined from the front.

Minori’s face was bright red as she sat back down, Haru just stared at her and her friend’s shoulders bunched up in embarrassment.

“Jeez, Ori-chan,” she snickered as she watched as the ace’s serve pounded into the other team’s ace and was knocked out of bounds. “Warn a girl next time. I don’t think my eardrums will every recover.”

“Sorry,” she whispered. “He responds well to positive reinforcement.” She looked back up, watching as he served once more. “I thought it may help him refocus.”

“Ha,” her friend looked over, her cat-like squinting at the small girl. “One would think you actually care about the game.”

Minori held up her hand, her thumb and pointer finger barely a centimeter from each other. Haru laughed, “Well I need a refill. Let me know if anything good happens.”


	11. Chapter 11

Minori frowned at the scoreboard.

It was over.

The first game that she had ever watched and they had lost. She could see in Tendo’s eyes that he was upset about as he caught her eye when they went to bow to the crowd. He looked away quickly, almost as if ashamed. Ushijima didn’t even seek her out.

Haru looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t offer any words to her, she could tell the girl was thinking more about the boys on the court. “Well,” Haru whispered, standing up and grabbing her friend’s arm to do the same. “Time to go then.”

Yuu turned around as the girls started to turn to the stairs, “Uh hey…”

Haru held a finger up to him, “DON’T even finish whatever you were going to say.” She pointed to Minori, who had a brow raised. “She already has a boyfriend, and I am plain not interested.”

Minori was about to open her mouth to retort on her friend’s comment about a boyfriend, but Haru pushed her back, making her bump into a cheerleader. The ponytailed cheerleader glared back at her, but Minori just brushed her off and continued to climb the stairs, already thinking about something, anything she could do for the boys.

Ushijima did finally look up to see Minori walking away.

While his face showed nothing, there was something that stung in his chest.

It didn’t go away even as he and Tendo stretched, and he wondered what it was that was making it harder to focus when Washijo talked to them before they got back on the bus. 

Ushijima and Tendo returned to their dorm, tired not only from the intense game, but the punishment Washijo-sensei put them through when they returned.

They both paused when they saw the wooden bento on the floor in front of their door. Tendo bent down to grab it and saw the paper taped to the top.

_Sorry these aren’t as good as Mama’s_

_You guys did great, best match I’ve ever seen._

_-Ori_

_P.S. No this doesn’t mean you can call me that Tendo._

The red-head’s lips stretched into a smile and he chuckled. The tears he had been holding back dripping down as he opened the box to see some onigiri. He held the box out to Ushijima who grabbed one.

“You’ve only ever seen one match Ori-chan…” he laughed.

The two boys made their way into their dorm, sitting quietly and enjoying the onigiri their tutor had made for them.

They didn’t they had ever tasted something so delicious. 

Winter break was upon them and and Minori was packing up to head home. Her father had left the country once again and she wanted to keep her mother company. She was texting Eita as she did so.

_Are you not going to come back? Your mom is going to be piiiiiissed._

_Yeah, but they are holding a training camp and Ushijima actually asked us to stay to play some practice matches._

Minori rolled her eyes, but continued to text.

_Well good luck._

_Are you doing anything for Christmas/New Year._

Minori laughed to herself. _Isn’t Christmas a couple’s holiday at this point._

_Oh, I could get you a date for sure. This text was followed with the emoji that had a smarmy look and raised eyebrow._

_Uh-huh, I think I’m good. I may go to the shrine New Year’s, but the ryokan s full, so we will see_

_Well good luck! I’ll stop by when I finally head back._

Eita, after putting his phone on the charger, thought to himself.

When the third years got together later in the cantina, Eita looked at two of his teammates as he asked, “Is everyone heading home for the holidays?”

Soekawa Jin and Reon Ohira nodded, while Tendo looked up to the ceiling. “Eh, probably not.” Yagamata just shook his head, “I have to watch my sisters….”

Ushijima didn’t answer, he just started down at his ramen.

“Just asking, you guys know I live close to the shrine, wanted to see if anyone would want to sleep over and we can go New Year’s Eve?”

Soekawa sighed, “Man I would be down, but I already promised my mom…”

Tendo’s eyes got larger. “Only if we get to visit the ryokan next door too…”

Eita smiled, “Well Ori-chan told me they were booked….But I think I can pull a few strings. She said her dad was gone again and Shizraki-san is getting lonely.”

Ushijima looked up at this. “It would be good to invite the second and first years to build team relations.”

Eita and Tendo both tried not to roll their eyes.

“That’s a good idea Ushiwaka,” Ohira commented. “If others can make it I may be able to join on New Year’s at the shrine.” He looked away and slightly blushed as he continued, “I may have other plans New Year’s Eve…”

“Ohhhh,” Tendo smiled and threw an arm over the outside hitter. “You have a hot date?”

Ohira cleared his throat, but didn’t comment.

“We need to head to the gym soon,” Ushijima said as he stood with his now empty bowl. His teammates sometimes surprised at how quickly he could down his meals. “Washijo-sensei is expecting us at noon.”

All the others nodded and stood as well, even though some of them had barely had a chance to touch their food they had been talking so much.

“Minori darling.”

The curly hair girl looked up from washing the dishes. Semi-san, Eita’s mother, stood in the doorway.

“I hate to do this, but do you think you can run something to Eita for me?”

Minori nodded, not even considering what it was the woman needed her to run to her son. “Let me just finish…”

“Oh no dear,” the older woman said putting the package onto the table and taking over at the sink. “I’ll take over from here. He said he is going to be stuck on campus for a few more days. They asked them to do some practice matches or something. I just want to make sure he can hold out until he gets home.” Semi-san had a sinister looking grin on her face and she knew whatever was in that package was going to be embarrassing for her blond friend.

Minori broke out into a wicked smile as well, this was going to be fun.

She was in a typical komon kimono, but decided to forgo changing, only throwing her dark green coat and gathering the package, as well as a bento of her mother’s nikuman that she had made for lunch.

She watched her breath as she waited for the bus. As it got closer to the end of the year, the weather was starting to get colder. Her hands were starting to get cold and she wished that she had remembered to bring her gloves. Thankfully the bus had decided to turn on the heater, even if it was still chilly.

Once she was at the school gates, she wondered if she should head to the dorms, but found herself walking straight to the volleyball gym.

She stopped just right outside the door and opened it slowly, poking her head in.

The courts were full and she saw many of the third years that she knew on various courts. She also recognized a tall blond that she had seen at the match the other day. Her eyes widened. Wasn’t this camp for first years? One kid was even taller...What were they feeding these boys these days that made them so tall?

She stepped inside discreetly, making her way to the older coach that was sitting on the sidelines and watching. He saw her coming and she stopped to bow, shuffling over faster.

“Washijo-sensei,” she bowed once more when she finally made it to him. “I apologize for interrupting, Semi-san requested that I bring this to her son.”

The older man nodded, and even as stern as he was, he nodded to the spot on the bench. “It’s cold outside, warm up a bit before you leave.”

She nodded and sat quickly, shifting the package and bento to her lap so she could bring her hands to her mouth. She stopped after moment and not wanting to be rude, offered the coach and assistant coach some of the nikuman. Washijo took one and chomped down on it, his eyes never leaving the courts, but the assistant coach shook his head.

Ushijima was the first to spot her. While he was playing two on two with Semi as his setter, he was about to serve when he caught the bottom of the brightly colored kimono in his periphery. His eyes widened and he turned fully to see her sitting on the bench. That’s when Semi realized his captain was distracted and looked over.

“Ori?!”

When the girl heard her name she lifted her head and gave her friend and neighbor a small wave, gesturing to the packaging in her lap and signing. ‘From your mother.’

“Crap,” Eita held his hands in a time out sign and rushed over to his friend. Ushijima also made his way over, but only because he also saw the bento box between the girl and his coach.

“She said she wanted to make sure you can ‘hold out’ until you get home,” She had an innocent smile on her face, but he saw the twinkle in her eyes. He took the package, but shifted it under his arm, not wanting to open it until he was alone.

Washijo-sensei wasn’t having it. “Your mother sent this poor girl in this cold weather to get that to you. Are you not going to open it?”

Eita frowned, Minori’s smile grew as she handed Wakatoshi a nikuman. He took it, realizing her fingers felt like ice.

“Did you not wear gloves?” He asked as he took a bite. Her mother made the best snacks.

“I forgot them,” her eyes didn’t stray from Eita who was sighing as he prepared to open the wrapped package. “Honestly it was a miracle that I remembered my coat.”

Eita’s face was bright red and he tried to hide the contents, but Minori had already seen.

“Are those underwear Tata?!”

Washijo was now smiling just as large as she was, enjoying the humor the boy’s mother had. Even the assistant coach was trying not laugh.

Ushijima nodded as he took another dumpling Minori held out, “That is quite thoughtful of your mother.”

Semi’s face was bright red as he turned to the ace with a glare. His teeth were gritted as he told Minori, “Tell Ha-Ha I appreciate her thoughtfulness and will see her soon.”

Minori rose a brow and continued to sit there looking smug. “I told you she wouldn’t be happy that you were coming home late.”

Washijo was still smiling as well when he leaned over and told the assistant coach. “Let the boys take a break, it is almost lunch time.” Quickly the coach followed the order blowing his whistle and waving all the players over.

Minori’s eyes widened. She was sitting down but all these boys were so…tall that loomed over her. Washijo stood and she realized that he was probably only a few centimeters taller than her, but all the boys looked frightened of him. When he dismissed them to lunch they all bowed. The coach himself looked like he was heading off to eat, grabbing another dumpling from Minori before heading out.

A flash of red ran past her line of sight and she leaned to look around Eita who still stood in front of her.

“Hey isn’t that…?”

She didn’t get a chance to finish, Tendo was on her immediately. Ushijima had seen who she was pointing at and frowned.

“Shizaraki-chan you came to see me!” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders but she put a hand in his face before it could become a true hug.

The only first year in the school colors, a kid with an unfortunate bowl-cut, stuck behind after being dismissed and walked over to his seniors that had gathered.

Tendo meanwhile, while still hovering by Minori had caught sight of the package in Semi’s hands.

“What cha got there bud?”

Eita’s face, which had managed to return to a normal color turned bright red again, knowing his other teammates would never let him live this down.

“Semi-san wanted to make sure Tata-kun had enough underwear,” Minori sputtered and was about to start cracking up, “You know, just in case.”

He sighed and glared at Minori as Tendo started rolling on the ground in laughter. “I am not going to forget this Ori-chan. You know this means war.”

Her eyes diverted to the ceiling and she sucked in her bottom lip, trying to go for a completely innocent look. “I am just the delivery girl.”

She stood from the bench, putting the top back on the bento but handing it off to Wakatoshi, pointing at and telling him to “Share.”

“You are going back already?” Tendo asked.

“Yes,” she sighed. “The ryokan is booked so there is a lot to do.”

Ushijima moved in front of her and she craned her neck to look up at him. “Your hands are still cold you should stay and warm up before going back outside.”

“I’m fine Ushijima,” as she said so she opened the bento he held and grabbed a bun for their junior, handing it back to him without even looking at him.

The taller boy bowed and took the dumpling. “Thank you….”

Tendo smirked, “Senpai, Goshiki. She’s your senpai.”

The boy seemed shocked. “Uh, thank you senpai?” The way he phrased it made it sound like he still wasn’t quite sure that the girl in front of him was older.

“Shizaraki-senpai,” she turned giving a smirk to the boy. “You can thank me for keeping these idiots on the court.” Her face dropped and her gaze became sharp. “YOU don’t suck at math do you….what is your name? He bowed again quickly,

“Goshiki Tsutomu! And no senpai, I have good grades in math!”

Tendo smirked and said under his breath, “History on the other hand…”

Minori ignored the comment. “Glad to hear,” she gave the taller player a small smile. “Work hard Goshiki-kun.”

Tsutomu blushed slightly.

The flash of red caught her attention again. She scrunched her brow as she pointed once again. “Hey,” she said, grabbing the boys attention, though Tendo was trying to get a dumpling from Ushijima who didn’t seem too keen on giving them up. “I saw the tall blond from the match on the courts…that kid is also from…oh what were they called?”

“Karasuno,” Ushijima frowned, his gaze sharpening as he followed hers to the short ginger sweeping the floor.

“Sure. So why is that one wiping the floor with the ball boys?”

Goshiki spoke up, even though he had just stuffed the dumpling into his mouth. “He wasn’t invited, Washijo-sensei let him stay but he can’t participate except as a ball boy.”

“Huh,” she blinked. “And he still stayed?”

Tendo answered this time, “Yep, and he comes back each day.”

“Hmmmm.”

Minori grabbed the last nikuman from the box, ignoring the look that Ushijima gave her. She then walked over to the boy who was about the same size as her.

“Wow you are short.”

Minori frowned, she didn’t really mean for that to be the first thing she said to the boy. The ginger’s eyes looked angry when he turned to her, but he was shocked when he realized a girl stood behind him.

A girl in a kimono at that.

She handed out the dumpling to him, “Here, you look hungry. Ushijima ate most of them so there is only one left.”

He took it gingerly, giving her a confused look. Minori just gave him a small smile, “You played really well the other day. Keep it up.”

Before he could say anything in response, she was walking away, waving to the members of Shiratorizawa standing not too far off.

“See you soon Tata-kun. The rest of you enjoy your holiday!”

Hinata bit down on the dumpling, smiling at the delicious flavor. He looked over to the players and realized that Ushijima was glaring at him more than normal. The small red-head jumped a bit and then quickly went back to wiping the floor, a little faster than he had been. 

While the others turned to head to the cantina with all the other players, Ushijima paused. Realizing the Shizaraki had walked off without taking the empty bento and he looked back at the door she had just exited from. “I will be there in a moment. I need to give this back to Shizaraki before she leaves.”

Tendo was about to jump in and say that he would take it, but Eita caught him by the collar and pulled the red-head close, even though Tendo had a few centimeters on him in height.

“Let him do it Satori.”

The red-head pouted but didn’t say anything, gathering himself once Semi let go of him and looking out the door that Ushijima went through wistfully.

“Shizaraki.”

The petite girl turned when she heard her name. Ushijima was jogging after her.

“Ushijima, what…?”

Before she finished he had made it over and held out the bento to her. Her face flushed.

“Oh, right, uh, thank you.”

She took it from him, her hands barely touching his as she did so. Unlike her own, his were warm. Minori saw his brow lower, but wasn’t prepared for him to take hold of her hand. She nearly dropped the box that he had just handed over.

“Your hands are still cold.” He met her gaze as he continued. “You should have worn gloves.”

She huffed. “I told you I forgot them, and you’re one to talk.” She gestured to him with the arm that held the bento since he had yet to let go of her other hand. “You are still in shorts, and you didn’t even put a jacket on!”

He stayed quiet and his grip on her hand tightened slightly.

Minori’s cheeks were beginning to get red, and it wasn’t from the chilly weather. She was beginning to realize that the t-shirt he was wearing under the practice jersey fit quite snug. The sleeves cut of mid-bicep, and she would be lying if she didn’t say she was quite enjoying how it accented his muscle. It made it seem like his strength couldn’t be contained.

Minori cleared her throat and pulled her hand from his. “Go inside Ushijima, I’m going to head home before my fingers fall off, so don’t worry so much. You act like a mother hen sometimes you know?”

She turned and started to walk away, but turned her head back around to see that he hadn’t moved at all. “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Ushijima.”

He nodded to that. “You as well.”

She gave him a bright smile before turning back around, rushing to the gates in hopes of catching the next bus soon and not having to wait outside too long.

Ushijima watched her, not noticing that the hand that held hers tightened into a fist. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm stuck inside with all the snow in Texas, now I have....so...much...time......
> 
> To write terrible fanfiction >:D


	12. Chapter 12

“Ready everyone?”

The five volleyball players stood just outside the dorms. Shirabu Kenjiro, Goshiki Tsutomu, Tendo and Ushijima all stood by Semi. They had been the ones to take up Eita on his offer to get them out of the dorms over the holidays. He, for his part, had convinced his mother to host the lot of them by telling her that they would help at the ryokan…something that he hadn’t quite told his teammates yet.

“Great, let’s get out of this cold.”

The bus driver rose an eyebrow as the tall teenagers all boarded the bus. While he had been used to picking up students at this stop, he had never seen so many…large teens.

The five boys made it to Semi’s house. Tendo looked over to the ryokan as they passed it with a sigh, but Semi’s house as about half a kilometer down. It was a simple affair, a small two story with a gate separating it from the street. It looked very much like the two on either side of it.

“Tadaima!” He called as they all entered the front door.

There was no answer, his mother must already be down at the ryokan. He thought that he would give the guys a break before breaking the bad news that they would have to work over the break.

He brought everyone up to his room on the second floor, and pointed to a room a few doors down. “That’s my older sister’s room. She’s off at college so two of you can stay in there.”

Goshiki got excited when he saw the Xbox 360 in the corner “Are we going to play!?”

Semi blinked but saw where the younger boy was looking, “Uh sure?”

The words were barely out of his mouth when the kid was turning on the television and booting up the system. Halo 3 was already in the system and once the controller was connected, Goshiki shouted “Who is going to take me on first?”

“Just make yourself right at home Goshiki, please,” Semi said in an overly sarcastic voice, following it up with a sigh. Tendo was more than happy to join the first year sitting on the ground in front of the TV, grabbing the second controller and settling on the floor.

“Well, does anyone want something to eat?”

Ushijima nodded and he quickly follow Semi back down the stairs.

Once in the kitchen they noticed Semi’s father at the table, reading the newspaper.

“Chi-chi,” Eita said as Ushijima bowed, then quickly went to the fridge.

“Eita,” he fake saluted. Unlike his mother, Eita’s father had darker brown hair and, though you couldn’t tell it when he was sitting, he was a few centimeters taller than his son. He smiled jokingly at his son, “How’s math going?”

Eita’s shoulders sprung up as he jumped with a shiver. He turned away, not meeting his father’s eye as he whispered. “Mom told you about that?”

“Actually,” his father chuckled as he stood, Ushijima had pulled out things to make a sandwich it looked like. “You can thank me for not telling her when the school called again.”

A heavy hand fell on Eita’s shoulder and he could feel the dark aura coming of his father. “Maybe spend more time on that instead of practicing that guitar of yours yeah?”

“Would you also like one Semi?”

Both father and son looked up. “Hello again Ushijima,” his father called. Ushijima nodded, he had been to Eita’s house a few times, one of the reasons he felt comfortable just helping himself to the kitchen.

“I’m good Toshi,” Eita called, still trying to get away from his father.

“I’ll bet Ushijima doesn’t let his grades slip.”

Shirabu joined them just as that comment was made. “Actually, Ushijima’s grades are worse.”

Semi-san was a bit surprised, even looking down skeptically at his son who was giving him a smile.

“Well,” his father pat his shoulder, giving him a true smile. “You boys go enjoy your holiday, at least until your mother comes back and makes you head down to help out.”

Shirabu’s ears perked up, “Excuse me?”

Now Eita felt a dark aura from a different side of the room. His dad had conveniently left the room, but he could hear the chuckle left behind. 

“Right, so uh…” Eita looked up at the ceiling, “We may have to go help down at the ryokan a bit…”

Ushijima looked at his friend but didn’t say anything. Shirabu was glaring, “Geez, if I had known we would be put to work I would have just stayed at the dorms.”

“Hey, at least you guys don’t have to deal with boring cantina food.”

Ushijima did think as he finished a bite of the first sandwich he had made. “The ryokan does have very delicious food.”

Shirabu sighed and went to make himself a sandwich, “Whatever, if Ushijima is fine with it, I guess I will be too.” The stoic teen was honestly fine regardless, he got to spend time with his captain instead of alone at the dorms, even as annoying as the other teammates were.

They soon made their way back upstairs and enjoyed slacking off until Eita heard the door slam open.

His mother was back and he felt his soul preparing to leave his body.

“YOU LAZY SON! GET DOWN TO THE HOTEL AND GET TO WORK!”

The door slammed again, and he knew that the woman had only come to the house to yell at him.

He sighed and looked over at Goshiki and Tendo who had surprised expressions on their faces.

Tendo recovered quickly. “We get to go see my darling Ori-chan?!”

Goshiki looked confused, “The senpai from the other day?”

Tendo caught up the younger boy about the fact that she lived down the street in the ryokan they had passed. “Ah I didn’t realize we would get to see my little math goddess. Truly a great holiday!”

Eita stood up from he had been watching his friend’s playing games. “Yeah and we have to go help out…”

Goshiki almost looked excited. “I’ve never been to a ryokan before!”

Sara-san was chopping vegetables when the boys entered through the back door. Eita held his arm out to stop the boys, not wanting to scare her when she had a knife in her hands.

Once she put the knife down, he went over and put his hand on her shoulder. She jumped a bit but when she turned to see him she gave a big smile, then she turned to the remaining boys who were removing their shoes and gave a small wave.

“Goshiki, Shirabu, this is Shizaraki-san, Ori-chan’s mom.”

“Excuse you,” everyone but Sara-san jumped at the voice. “That is Shizaraki-senpai to you guys. And just what the hell are you doing here?”

Everyone looked up at the girl who had just shoved the shoji screen aside with force. Ignoring them she walked over to the shorter woman and turned, the obi she held to her midsection not yet done. Sara-san made quick work of it while Minori continued to run a brush through her surprisingly straight hair.

“Shizaraki-chan, what happened to your curls and your sexy glasses?” Tendo cried. Minori turned to glare but didn’t answer him.

Her mother pat Minori’s shoulder when she was done with the obi.

Thankfully as Sara was finishing, Eita’s mother came in through the open screen as well, carrying a platter of dishes. Another girl followed in quickly behind her and made her way in front of Minori who quickly pulled and tied the girls hair up into a simple bun. The girl handed back a ribbon that Minori tied around finishing it off with an almost perfect bow.

“Two of you start these dishes, some one needs to rake the leaves in the courtyard and wipe down the floorboards. Whoever is left gets to clean up the men’s onsen…” Semi-san belted out orders. “Kikiyo-chan you set the room for the tea ceremony?”

“Hai, once Minori-chan is ready we can start.”

“I will let the guests that wanted to participate know.” She glared over at the boys that still stood in the doorway. “Well get to it!”

Goshiki jumped but ran over to grab the dishes quickly. Eita surprisingly turned to Minori and helped her style her hair taking the decorative comb she handed off to him and placing in her own low bun. “I’ll grab the onsen guys.”

Tendo stepped over to Sara-san, “I’ll stay in here and help Shizaraki-sama. I’m quite good in the kitchen you know Ori-chan.” He had hoped that Minori had heard him, but she had already rushed back out the door, hopping on one foot to pull up her tabi. He signed to Sara-san as he sighed, ‘Do you need help?’. 

Sara-san nodded and pointed to the radishes that needed to be cut and pickled as well. Ushijima headed outside to find the rake and that left Shirabu with a sigh asking where the cloths were to wipe the floors. He was almost run over by another girl running forward cleaning the floorboards. Semi-san came out and pointed down the hall. “Hanna-chan has these, you go over there.”

The craziness that was a full hotel kept everyone busy and before they knew it the sky was darkening and the temperature dropping.

They all found themselves back in the kitchen. Exhausted, they were enjoying snacks that Sara-san had made them before she had gone to grab the final dishes from guests of the night.

Minori slid the shoji open with her foot and dumped yet another pile of dishes by Goshiki who jumped and looked like he was about to start crying. The small girl took pity on him. “Go sit Goshiki, I got these.”

She took a tasuki from her kimono sleeve, expertly tying back her sleeves and bumping the taller kid out of the way with her hip.

“I know that Tata-kun said you guys could stay at his house,” she turned over her shoulder, “but I think you guys worked hard enough to stay the night here instead if you want. Though I would wake up early and make yourself scarce unless you want to help with morning chores.”

“Ah,” Tendo sighed and smiled, “I hear that onsen calling my name.”

Eita glared having spent a lot of time scrubbing that place today. “Clean up after yourself.”

“Oh the room you guys normally stay in is full. You guys will have to share with me.”   
Ushijima, Goshiki, and Shirabu all sat straighter. Eita didn’t seem to care. Tendo…

“Oh it’s a dream come true….”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who has yet to pick up Haikyuu-Buu!! I highly recommend. All the Shiratorizawa chapters are hilarious.
> 
> Even if it may not be legit canon, I may be basing some character traits from there.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for a slumber party

She placed six futons in the room, pushing the kotasu to the side of the to accommodate the additional bedding. She was reading a book under it when the boys all came back from their bath, a large plate of onigiri, various dumplings, and manju in the shapes of bunnies sat in the very middle.

Minori kept her eyes on her book, she saw the calves of all the boys in her periphery, the yukatas not quite reaching any of their ankles and decided that it was safer.

“That was amazing,” Tsutomu’s eyes were shining. “Ryokans are great.”

“Yeah when you aren’t working at one,” Kenjiro glared over at Eita who just whistled and looked to the ceiling.

Tendo made his way over to the kotasu situating himself under it right by Minori.“Yay kotasu.”

His legs were so long his feet hung out on the other side, Shirabu didn’t seem to mind gathering under the blanket on the opposite side. Ushijima sat down on Minori’s left…just habit at this point. Eita filled the last spot, leaving Tsutomu looking sad that he didn’t get to sit under the kotasu.

“Tata-kun scoot over and let your kohai sit.”

“No room I’m afraid.”

She looked at him with a sharp glance and kicked what she thought was his leg under the table.

“Ow!” Shirabu exclaimed. “Geez, from someone as small as you, that really hurt.”

“Sorry Shirabu-kun,” her gaze turned to a glare at Eita. “I wasn’t aiming for you.”

Wakatoshi scooted closer to the edge, his leg brushing against Minori’s crossed ones. “Tsutomu sit here.”

Minori for her part kept her face neutral, even though feeling Wakatoshi’s leg resting against her own had her heart beating faster.

The boys all helped themselves to the snacks, except Tendo who laid back, his head resting on his arms. “Do I get to claim the futon next to yours Ori-chan?”

She closed her book and hit his face with it. “Your joking isn’t funny Tendo,” she said as she grabbed a manju bunny.

“Careful Satori,” Eita leaned back like Tendo and closed his eyes, the day catching up with him. “She will move your futon outside.”

“Into the koi pond,” she said her face completely serious when she said it. She actually didn’t care where anyone slept…as long Ushijima was as far away from her as was possible.

It wasn’t long until the warmth of the kotasu and the fatigue she had of running around all day caught up with Minori and Eita was poking her head to jostle her from falling asleep on the table’s surface.

No words passed, but she stood, making her way over to the futon by the shoji screen so only one person could be next to her. She stepped over Satori who was also already asleep. The two juniors didn’t look like they were much further off either.

She tucked herself under the comforter and it wasn’t long before she was dead to the world. 

Wakatoshi laid back, looking at the ceiling. His internal clock had woken him up early, the light barely peeking through the the shoji. Normally, he would get up and get ready for a run…there was one little problem.

Minori had rolled in her sleep.

Her arm was laying across his chest and her head was turned resting on the elbow that he had bent behind his head before falling asleep last night. He frowned when he realized that the sleeve of his shirt was wet and the girl must have been drooling.

Goshiki also had his leg on top of him, which he would have normally just shoved off. The small girl however gave him pause.

He turned his head, looking at how her curly hair had turned into an unruly mess. The arm that wasn’t on him was raised above her resting on Eita face who’s futon was opposite hers. The blond seemed to have been used to it and was still sleeping, snoring slightly even.

He shifted a bit, his arm was starting to fall asleep from his head as well as hers resting on it. He watched as Minori scrunched her brow and closed her mouth, halting the spread of the drool puddle forming on him. She didn’t move though and Wakatoshi decided that he would either have to wake her up or suffer through the tingling sensation in his left arm.

He was about to do it when she made a small noise, a slight hum, and a smile pulled at her sleeping lips.

Something in his chest started tingling just like his arm and he moved quickly, sitting up and knocking her off.

Wakatoshi stayed still and though she had just been jostled, she simply rolled onto her side, folding herself into a ball.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“She drool on you?”

Wakatoshi jumped at the quiet voice and looked behind him. Eita’s eyes were open and met his. “She drools, probably should have warned you.”

Wakatoshi pointed his thumb to the red head that had been placed the furthest away from the small girl. “Tendo snores.”

After the comment, a loud snore was indeed coming from that side of the room. Eita tried to hold in a chuckle.

“You want to head back to the house? Your running clothes are still in your bag right?”

Wakatoshi nodded, and the two of them quietly left the room, trying not to disturb any of the other occupants. 

  
  
“Just look at that cuuuuuuuuuute sleeping face.

Minori finally awoke with a glare. Tendo was barely two centimeters from her face.

“Uh, Tendo-senpai I don’t think….”

Goshiki knew the red-head was going to get in trouble, but neither he nor Shirabu were ready when the girl thrust her fist straight into his face and knocked him to his back.

“Stop being such a creep Tendo! That is not the first thing a girl wants to see when she wakes up!”

Tendo rolled back into a sitting position and couldn’t help but laugh at the girl’s messy head of hair, her curls going in every direction and a major cowlick making the back of her hair stand nearly straight up.

“Well don’t you look absolutely gorgeous this morning Shizaraki-chan.”

She clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut. “I totally should have sent you guys home last night.” As she spoke, she rose her hands, rubbing at her face and trying to get the sleep out of her eyes.

Eventually she groaned and stood, walking over to her dresser to pull out another kimono and obi. “Mama will have breakfast ready if you guys head to the kitchen. Although it looks like Tata-kun and Ushijima escaped.” She turned around to look at the three remaining volleyball players. “You guys may want to make yourself scarce as well before Semi-san comes and puts you all to work again.”

She slid the door shut behind her as she made her way to the women’s onsen to change and manage her hair. 

Ushijima had just finished his run and was taking his shoes off at the front of the Semi house when the trio showed up.

“Enjoy your run?” Shirabu asked as they stopped to remove their shoes as well.

He nodded and waited for everyone else.

When they went up the stairs to Eita’s room, he was leaned back on the floor watching anime on the TV. He looked back but stayed on the floor as everyone seemed to gather and grab their bags. Eita didn’t move and continued to watch the TV until Goshiki finally commented. “Are you not going to the ryokan?”

Eita turned around quickly. “Eh, you guys want to go back?!”

“You’re mom is a little scary…I don’t want her yelling at me again.”

“She is almost just as bad Washijo-sensei.”

“I want to see Ori-chan in her kimono again and Sara-san made breakfast!”

“Shizaraki-san makes the best food.”

“Right! And I want to go to the onsen again!.”

Eita continued to look at them skeptically. “You guys are crazy.”

Ushijima spoke again, “They also need the help…”

Tendo squinted his eyes at Eita. “After all the times she helped you, such a terrible…

“FINE!” He got up turned off the TV and gathered a few clothes into a bag as well as grabbing his guitar. “If you guys want to waste your holiday…”

It was laundry day apparently, while most of them were stuck washing and hanging sheets and guest yukatas to dry, Ushijima and Tendo stayed in the kitchen with Shizaraki-san. Ushijima had traded with Goshiki and did dishes most of the day. 

That night they all found themselves once again huddled under the kotasu. Shizaraki-san had gone all out, having asked the boys in the kitchen their favorite dishes and made hayashi rice and tekka maki, which was technically Eita’s favorite, apologizing to Tendo that she didn’t have any ice cream. The empty dishes sat in the middle of the table. Minori had started to fall asleep as she was eating and so pushed it over to Ushijima who she was beginning to realize had a bottomless pit for a stomach.

Instead of Eita poking her when she had fallen asleep on the table, he gathered her up and put her on her futon. “She must be exhausted,” her childhood friend commented as he pulled the comforter over her. “Normally she’s a light sleeper.”

Tendo was already snoring under the kotasu along with Goshiki. Ushijima rose, and decided to take one of the futons not right next to the small girl, learning his lesson. Shirabu got up and kicked both the sleeping teammates to get them move to the futons so EIta could turn off the kotasu. Goshiki claimed the futon between his rival and their hostess, while the others grabbed the ones they had the night before.

Ushijima woke early again the next morning to find his junior and tutor in what seemed like a fight to take up as much space as possible. Her arm was on his face and his was across her mid-section. Goshiki’s leg still ended up on him and he grabbed it so he could get up, slightly pulling the kid’s body so it wasn’t on Minori.

He paused for a moment, slightly distracted by her sleeping face like he had been yesterday. She looks like she kept her mouth closed last night and she didn’t drool anywhere. Her face was relaxed, and a single curl had separated from the mass to rest on her cheek. It was one of those times when he couldn’t deny that the girl was pretty.

Wakatoshi shook his head, clearing those thoughts and went to the onsen changing room to put on his running clothes, soon making his way out the front door of the ryokan to brave the cold winter air.

“I need someone to come with me to the store.”

The boys were resting in the kitchen with a platter of onigiri Sara-san had made them.

“We need more rice and I have trouble carting back the bags.”

Goshiki rose his hand quickly, he saw it as an opportunity to train.“I will go with you Shizaraki-senpai.”

Her mother came back into the kitchen and scurried over to Minori, signing to her daughter.

“THANK YOU FOR THE ONIGIRI SHIZARAKI-SAN!”

Minori glared at Goshiki and Eita face-palmed at the table. Sara-san turned being able to hear at least something of the volume that was right next to her, she smiled at the tall youth.

“She’s deaf you idiot,” Eita groaned, “Not hard of hearing.” They had told Goshiki and Shirabu as the holiday had continued as they were getting confused as to why Sara-san never talked. Shirabu had already figured it out…Goshiki on the other hand…

His back went straight and he started to bow, apologizing. Shizaraki-san’s smile grew and she pat his bowl-cut.

“Cut it out before I beat you up Goshiki-kun,” Minori looked like a demon at that point to the youngest member of the group. “Mama says we need a lot of rice as we are almost out, I may need someone else to come.”

“I can do it Shizarkai-senpai!”

“I will go,” Ushijima said at the same time that Goshiki tried to convince Minori h could do it on his own.

Minori nodded and took the list that her mother held out to her. She slipped into her zori and grabbed her coat and a scarf. “Well let’s get going. We need some of this stuff for guests' dinners.”

Goshiki and Ushijima came over, also grabbing their jackets. For some reason both of them had only brought their team jackets. Minori took note that they didn’t have any scarves or other winter wear and Ushijima was wearing shorts still.

“Do not forget your gloves,” he stated as she caught herself staring at his well-toned calves. She met his gaze and frowned.

“You’re one to talk Ushijima…” she did grab her gloves though and then proceeded out the door, the two boys following behind her. 

Minori glared up at the top shelf.

Of course the spice Mama wants has to be on the top shelf, she thought. She had sent the boys to other sides of the store to help her gather the items faster while she gathered the more specific things. She wished at this moment that she had kept one of them.

Pushing her lips forward into a pout, she stood one her toes as best she could in her zori and reached up, grabbing hold of a lower shelf to keep herself steady.

Her fingers were just short of the top shelf.

As she sighed in frustration and tried to stretch up higher, she suddenly felt a warmth at her back.

A large arm reached beside her and a large hand grabbed the jar she had been trying to get.

“This one?”

She kept her face down as she blushed, she knew who was behind her, and it made this whole scene even more embarrassing.

“Yeah that’s it,” she whispered. Once Wakatoshi had stepped back, she turned around, still looking at the ground she whispered, “I could have gotten it.”

Ushijima heard her and as he set the jar into the small cart with the other groceries he had gathered he said, “No you couldn’t, you are too short.”

She glared at him. He was right of course, but sometimes the guy’s bluntness made her want to punch him. 

Goshiki came nearly running down the aisle with an arm full of produce. “I got all the ones on the list Shizaraki-senpai!”

She nodded to him, “Great…now comes the hard part.”

The men followed her down the to the rice aisle. She pointed to the large bags of rice on the bottom shelf. “We need at least five of those.”

Ushijima nodded and went over to the pile grabbing three as if it were nothing and tried to put them in the bottom part of the cart. Minori tried her best to hold it still for him.

Goshiki went to do the same, but had a much harder time grabbing the two that were remaining.

“Tsutomu do you need help?”

The kid’s face looked like he was in pain. “No…”

“You look like you need to go to the bathroom Goshiki-kun,” Minori rose a brow but tried not to laugh. It wasn’t his fault that Ushijima had superhuman strength and made it look easy.

He finally made it over and dumped the large bags on top of the ones Ushijima had put in. “I did it.”

Both of the older students clapped. What made it worse for Tsutomu was that he knew both of them were doing so in earnest.

“Well this is going to be fun trying to get back to the hotel.”

“It is not too far,” Ushijima commented as Minori tried to turn the cart so they could head to the front. Her feet started to slip but the cart didn’t budge.

Ushijima came over and relieved her, moving the thing like it was nothing. 

She squinted at him as she followed, “Is he even human?”

Goshiki held his fist up and raced after the taller teen. “I can push it Ushijima-senpai!”

After they had checked out, Ushijima had taken the three bags of rice once again as well as few bags. Goshiki and Minori each took a bag each and Goshiki grabbed the remaining bags. Once they were all laden down, they set off back to the ryokan, half a kilometer away.

Goshiki and Minori were both breathing heavily once they finally made it inside and set the bags of rice down. Ushijima seemed to be sweating a bit, but not much worse for wear.

Shizaraki-san was there grabbing the bags of produce from them while also opening the first bag of rice and starting it in the two insta-pots.

Minori signed asking where everyone was and her mother answered.

‘Hanna-chan went home to help her father with the shop. Kikiyo is finishing with the last tea ceremony of the day. Semi-san is ordering the boys around somewhere.’

Minori nodded kicked off her zori, not bothering to place them nicely with the boys larger shoes. Before she could disappear out into the hallway Sara-san grabbed her arm. ‘Will you find Tendo?’. Minori nodded and then raced off. Once Goshiki had set his bags of groceries down on the table, he was racing after Minori. “Wait for me Shizaraki-senpai!”

Wakatoshi looked down at their shoes that they had thrown off. He picked up both pairs meaning to straighten them up, but paused a moment when he noticed the size difference in his junior’s and Minori’s. He looked down at his own shoes he had yet to take off. Putting Goshiki’s off to the side with the other’s, he placed one of the girl’s shoes next to his own.

They were almost half the size of his. As he stared down at them with a slight frown on his face, he thought back to the store and how she was trying to reach the top shelf. He guessed he forgot how small she was at times, she had a personality that filled the room at times…

“Toshi what are you doing zoning out?”

He looked up as he picked her shoe back up and placed it next to Goshiki’s. Tendo was in the doorway but quickly making his way over to stand beside Sara-san, who handed him the knife and moved over to roll out the dough she had been working on earlier.

“Get the dishes.”

Ushijima nodded, slipping out of his shoes finally and rushing over to grab the dishes that had piled up on the table. 


	14. Chapter 14

Goshiki was already passed out on the futon when Minori came back from her bath. Eita was actually strumming on his guitar in the corner. Tendo and Shirabu had helped themselves to some manga from her bookshelf while it looked like Ushijima had grabbed…

…was that one of her mother’s gardening magazines?

She squinted her eyes in confusion but just shook it off, stepping inside and sliding the shoji shut behind her. Instead of heading for the kotasu, she went straight to her futon. She was out in only a few minutes.

Three hours later she had woken up and was staring at the ceiling, trying her best not to move…

Or breathe.

Since Goshiki had claimed…well close to two futons by the time the rest of them had been ready to go to sleep, Ushijima was stuck with the half futon that wasn’t occupied next to Minori. The good thing was that she was huddled on her side close to the doors that lead to outside.

Tendo was more than happy to trade the ace, but both Wakatoshi and Eita knew that was a BAD idea. They didn’t want to wake up to yelling and the possibility of being caught in the violence that would ensue once Shizaraki found out who was sleeping next to her.

Minori had received quite the surprise when in the middle of the night, she felt a large hand grabbing her breast. She had been ready to elbow Tendo in the face, but was completely surprised when she turned her head to aim and saw the darker hair. That’s when she held her breath and tried not to move.

Minori, who was normally the one that rolled and tossed in her sleep hadn’t moved a single inch. No, the problem happened to be that Ushijima had…

…and apparently he was a snuggler.

Not only a snuggler, but possibly a closet pervert. 

She closed her eyes tightly. This was just another one her perverted dreams again she thought to herself. She would wake up soon and none of this would be happening.

That was an hour ago. She gave in and tried to shift a little so she could get out of this situation. Once she moved, his grip tightened around her. Minori’s eyes widened when she realized that there was another problem.

Ushijima must have been having a GREAT dream…because there was something very hard pushing up against her backside.

Minori’s face could have probably been used as a nightlight at that point, she had to be neon red.

There was only one thing that kept her from waking him…

She was surprised at just how…well big that hard on was. And how much she enjoyed the feeling of the situation.

Haru’s words from weeks ago rang in her ears. _He looks like he would be great in bed._

She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath through her nose. She knew she needed to get out of this situation before she made some of her perverted dreams come true and basically assaulted the unknowing volleyball player beside her.

Very VERY slowly, she tried to move up, completely forgetting that she had someone above her.

Eita blinked and sat up, wondering what had hit his head.

“Tata…”

He turned his head to look behind him and his eyes widened. There was enough light coming in from the shoji screens to see the situation that his friends were tangled in.

“Help me,” Minori whispered.

While he was about to joke, the look of pure terror on his childhood friend’s face made him put it aside. There was plenty of time for that later.

He grabbed her hand that she had been using to crawl forward and pulled. They got her about an inch further out of the ace’s clutches before Ushijima tightened his grip again, also squeezing her boob tighter. Her face squinted in pain while Eita whispered, “Dammit Toshi work with me here.”

“What’s going on?”

Minori tried not to jump at the new voice, but her face did start glowing red again.

Tendo sat up from the other side of Shirabu. His eyes narrowed at the situation. “And you were worried about me Ori-chan…”

“Not now Satori…help me.”

“Will all of you be quiet.”

That’s it, Minori decided that she would rather just die from embarrassment at this point.

Shirabu sat up and glared at Tendo, “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Kenjiro,” Eita said grabbing the other blond’s attention. Shirabu followed Eita’s face when he nodded down to Minori.

“Oh…”

“He is really starting to squeeze me…”

“Ushijima is a very heavy sleeper,” Tendo commented. “We could probably just roll him over…”

Minori couldn’t expose that there was a situation going on underneath the comforters…time to get rid of her shame so she could protect Ushijima's pride.

“He has my tit in a damn vice grip…you roll him I’m going with him.”

Everyone was very silent until Tendo commented. “Lucky.”

“NOT THE TIME TENDO!”

Her eyes widened when she said that louder than she should have…

Goshiki sat up…his bowl-cut going in all different directions. “Who’s there?!

“Tsutomu…”

He turned quickly towards Eita, but looked down to see his captain and Shizaraki-senpai in a…compromising pose.

“AH!”  
“Tsutomu, shut up and pull Toshi while we pull Ori out.”

Minori’s soul felt like it had left her body, she just laid there limply. Who was next, was her mom going to come in and see this nonsense too?

“I would have never taken Ushijima-san as a cuddler,” Shirabu commented, joining Goshiki in trying to pry the captain’s arm off of Minori.

Eita pulled once more on her arm, but she didn’t budge. Her other arm was locked under Ushijima’s and so she couldn’t offer it for anyone to pull as well.

“Oh forget it,” she said, finally having enough. She pulled her arm from Eita, and used it to reach back and elbow Ushijima right in the face.

Everyone, except Minori who was just happy to be let go at this point, jumped back as Wakatoshi suddenly sat up, blinked for a moment, and then laid back down like absolutely nothing had happened. Everyone looked at his sleeping form with wide-eyed.

“Told you,” Tendo whispered. “Back out like a light.”

“Tata trade with me.”

“Like hell,” Eita blocked Minori from moving to his futon. “I’m not going to get stuck as his teddy bear next.”

Goshiki was pulling his futon closer to the door as well.

“Then either scoot over or go home.”

“You can lay over here with me Ori-ch…”

A pillow went straight into Tendo face. Minori, didn’t ask anymore, she ducked under Eita’s arms and snuggled right next to the door. Eita frowned when Shirabu commented, “Don’t even try to scoot over to mine.”

The ash blond sighed, completely giving in, and shifting to the futon his friend had just vacated. 

Ushijima woke up before everyone per the usual, none the wiser as to the events of last night. He did realize he had an issue to deal with, and quickly and quietly made his way to the showers in the onsen before any guests or others woke up. He did wonder why Tsutomu was by the door when he left.


	15. Chapter 15

“You guys are not staying here tonight.”

Four pairs of eyes went to Ushijima who looked confused.

It was the end of another long day. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve and the ryokan let all the guests know that while the onsen would be open, the meals would be light so that the owner and family could enjoy their holiday as well.

Just when the guys had been getting ready to enjoy a bath in the onsen, Minori had stepped in front of them.

“Why not?” Ushijima asked.

Minori’s face flushed. Crap, she thought, I can’t say ‘no’ to that damn face.

“Fine,” she turned, flustered. “Nevermind.”

Ushijima’s brow lowered as he watched the small girl walk away. “Why is Shizaraki acting strange?”

When he turned to look at the others, Tendo and Eita were looking at the ceiling, Goshiki’s eye were glued to the floor, and Shirabu looked straight at Ushijima but didn’t say anything.

Minori shoved open the shoji to her parent’s room with her futon in her arms. Sara was sitting at her own kotasu, video chatting with her husband.

Minori paused by the door.

“Minori what are you doing?” Her father spoke from the screen.

“Uh…”

Sara turned and signed to the screen. ‘Some of Eita-kun’s friends came to help for the holiday rush, Minori offered them her room since all the others are full.’

“Yeah…and I was going to sleep in here with Mama…”

“That is very kind of you Minori,” her father responded. Minori spread out her futon and then went to sit with her mother as she conversed with her father.

“How are the states?”

“They are fine, your Aunt Matilda asked after you both.”

Sara signed to ‘let her know that they were doing fine’, her face turned to a frown however.

There was a rocky relationship between her and her sister, one of the reasons that her husband had taken over her part of her family’s business and was gone constantly. She was more than happy to take control of the ryokan if it meant she did not have to return to her childhood home in America.

“Do you two have plans for Christmas Eve?”

He had directed this more towards Minori who’s face now mirrored her mother’s. “Just running the ryokan.”

Sara’s face turned back up into a smile. ‘I’m sure more than one of those young men would be happy…’

Minori grabbed her mother’s hands to stop her but her mother just laughed.

“Eita-kun would be a good match for you…”

“Father absolutely not…”

“And Ushijima seems very honorable. I don’t quite know about that red-…”

Minori closed the screen on the laptop. She knew that her father would get onto her later, but she had enough teasing from her parents. Glaring at her mom one last time, she got up to leave the room.

Sara was still laughing as she opened the screen back up, the video was still connected. ‘She’s growing up so fast,’ she signed, wiping tears from her eyes from laughing so hard.

Satoshi signed back with a smile. ‘She is.’

“Move.”

Minori made Eita move over so she could get under the kotasu.

“I thought you were going to go sleep in your mother’s room?”

Ushijima looked up from the gardening magazine. “Why would you sleep in your mother’s room?”

She clicked her tongue and looked away, not answering Ushijima but Eita instead.

“Her and father are trying to get me to go out with someone tomorrow.”

Eita cracked up, Tendo who she thought was already asleep sat straight up and grabbed her hand. “I will go with you Ori-chan!”

Her face looked absolutely disgusted and she pulled her hand away quickly. “How about no?”

“Oh really,” Eita said finally managing to speak again. “Who were their candidates?”

Minori turned back to him with a sinister grin. “You actually.”

That shut him up very quickly.

“Wait,” Shirabu asked. “You guys AREN’T dating?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Hell no!”

Goshiki also looked confused. “But…?”

“They’re just in denial you two, they’ll figure out they are perfect for each other soon,” Tendo sighed, being a bit dramatic and moving his hand to his forehead as if he may faint. “And I shall have to let my dearest Ori-chan follow her true love…”

“When did I say that you could start calling me ‘Ori-chan’?!”

He ignored her and continued his dramatic tirade. “I’ll be left to wander the Earth alone, forever remembering…”

“Ok that’s enough,” Eita grabbed Tendo’s ear and pulled hard.

“Owowowow, ok I’ll stop!”

Ushijima was still wondering about the sleeping situation but asked. “Do you WANT to go somewhere tomorrow?”

Goshiki jumped and his head swiveled quickly to his captain. “ARE YOU ASKING SHIZARAKI-SENPAI OUT ON A DATE?!”

Ushijima blinked, Minori hid her face, Eita stayed quiet, and Tendo groaned. “Now I have two rivals for love.”

“No Ushijima,” Minori said, knowing what the guy had meant. “I am perfectly fine staying here.”

Shirabu, who had turned back to the manga in front of him muttered. “But would you say no if someone asked you?”

Minori actually thought about it. She glanced at Ushijima for no more than a second, but answered quickly. “It’s senior year and I’m about to graduate,” she paused and looked up at the ceiling thinking. “I think that getting a boyfriend now would just be a waste you know?”

Tendo looked like he was about to cry. “So it’s never going to work between us?!”

“Satori, it wasn’t going to work from the day she met you. You’re just delusional.”

  
  
Ushijima grabbed onto Minori’s arm as she was about to leave and go to her mother’s room.

“Why are you not sleeping in your own room?”

She looked away with a bright blush, “Uh well…”

“Did you drool on someone else?”

Minori’s head whipped around so fast her neck popped. “WHAT?”

“You drooled on me a few nights ago. It’s alright, I don’t mind. I can sleep next to you so you don’t have to worry about…”

She pulled her arm from him. “I DID WHAT?”

“Why are you screaming?” Shirabu called from underneath the comforter.

Minori’s eyes were wide as she stared up at Ushijima. Oh god, she thought, oh I didn’t…

“You should not be ashamed about getting a good night’s sleep.”

Please just let me die now, she continued to stare wide-eyed but moved her gaze up to the ceiling. She didn’t even realize that the guy had picked her up under her shoulders and sat her on a futon. Like Eita had done the other night, he pulled the comforter up, even though Minori was still sitting straight up.

“You should lay down, it’s hard to sleep sitting up like that.”

Minori just fell forward onto her legs, just giving up completely. Ushijima shrugged, if that was how she wanted to sleep, he knew she would move throughout the night. Goshiki was the one to notice the issue first. “Hey wait, she moved one of the futons!”

Eita who had already claimed his just commented, “Well looks like one of us is sleeping straight on the floor.”

Tendo who was also in a futon sat straight up. “Wait…ORI-CHAN DROOLS IN HER SLEEP!?! THAT'S SO CUTE.”

Minori groaned, hoping the earth would just swallow her whole.

Tsutomu ended up sleeping under the warm kotasu. 

Sara signed to her daughter as she entered the kitchen. ‘What happened last night?’

Minori sat at the table and placed her head on its hard surface. ‘You don’t want to know…’

Sara pat her daughter’s shoulder and when her daughter turned to face her she smiled. ‘Should I move your futon back?’ She chuckled as she signed and had to move quickly to miss her daughter’s swipe. 


	16. Chapter 16

‘You all should go out.’

Everyone around the table blinked at Sara-san who was smiling at all of them.

“What did she say?” Goshiki whispered to Eita.

“She said we should go out,” he continued to translate as she signed more. “She says we are too young to stay indoors on Christmas Eve and that we should go out and have fun.”

“As a group?”

“I think that’s what she means.”

Shizaraki-san looked straight at Eita. ‘Please get Minori out of the house.’

Eita smiled and held a thumbs up. “You heard the lady, let’s go enjoy ourselves tonight…”

“I will go grab Ori-chan!” Tendo stood up quickly and raced off to her bedroom where she had disappeared to earlier.

“Ori-chaaaaaaaaan!” he slid the door wide open and Minori already had a glare for him when he spotted five little presents all wrapped and stacked next to her.

“What are those? Is one for me?”

She threw to top on at him. “Yes, and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”

“ORI-CHAN HAS PRESENTS!!!”

Four guys stood up in the kitchen and scurried out into the hallway.

“BAKA YOU ARE GOING TO ANNOY THE GUESTS!”

The boys slid into one another on the hardwood of the hallways, all thanks to Ushijima who may have cleaned them a little to aggressively earlier.

“You have presents senpai?! FOR US?!”

Minori rolled her eyes and just shoved all the boxes onto the kotasu. “You guys really helped out so I thought I should get you something. Mama helped as well.”

Tendo had already opened his, his eyes looked teary. “A handmade scarf from Ori-chan. I will cherish this, it shall be an heirloom.”

“Hey this is really good,” Shirabu exclaimed. “Did you really make these by hand?”

She nodded. “Although Mama made that one, and Tendo’s.”

The red-head’s face fell a bit.

“Right,” Eita said throwing the scarf over his shoulder, “Tendo was supposed to tell you that we are going to go out and walk the town.”

Minori yawned and looked back down to her book. “Have fun.”

“Nu-uh,” Eita said going into the room and closing her book. That move earned him a glare.

“You are going to get out of your pjs and we ALL are going out. Your mother insisted.” It was finally time for some pay back for the underwear incident.

Minori groaned. “Fine, but you guys need to get out so I can change!”

“Or I can…”

“TENDO,” Eita, Minori, and Shirabu all yelled.

The boys all started to move out…except Wakatoshi.

“You made these for us?”

Minori frowned, did the big lug not hear anything she said earlier. She sighed and walked over towards him, taking the scarf from his hands.

“Yeah I did.” She had to get on her tip toes to wrap it around him but she smiled at she tied the ends. “You and Shirabu-kun didn’t have one when we went to the store the other day…and you get onto me all the time about staying warm.”

Wakatoshi looked down at her as she pulled away, he opened his mouth to say ‘thank you’ but he was interrupted.

“TOSHI LET THE WOMAN GET DRESSED SO WE CAN GO!”

She smiled as he quickly turned and left the hallway. 

“Did you remember your gloves?”

Minori glared from behind her scarf and hat. She pulled her gloved hands out of her coat and held them in front of his face.

Everyone had been surprised when she came out in a sweater dress and tights instead of the more traditional clothing she had been wearing the entire break.

She was honestly surprised to see that Ushijima had real pants.

Of course she had seen him in the uniform trousers before, but apart from that she had only ever seen him in shorts.

“You look so bundled up and warm Ori-chan! All I can see is your glasses.” Tendo tried to lift her hat up, but she quickly pulled it back down.

“It’s cold…who’s idea was it to go out again?”

All the guys were wearing the scarves that she had just given them, and they were thankful for them.

“Should we go see the Christmas tree?” Shirabu asked, Minori’s glared sharpened.

“You mean you didn’t have a plan?”

“Uh…”

None of the guys could meet her gaze.

“Ugh,” she sighed and started to march in front of everyone. “I am going to go get some candy at that store on the square. The Christmas tree is close by if you guys want to see it so bad.”

They all trudged after her, quickly catching up with their longer legs. “Oh there’s a coffee shop there too, we could get something warm to drink.”

“And there’s that ramen stand that Ohira was talking about…”

  
  
Minori had a glazed look in her eyes as she wandered around the candy store. She wasn’t even paying attention to the plotting teenage boys around her.

“Ori-chan has a major sweet tooth,” Eita whispered to his juniors while Tendo and Ushijima were already searching around for things that she liked. “So if you want to pay her back for the scarf…”

Goshiki was already running off, but Shirabu looked over to the other setter. “What does she like?”

“Well…” Both of them turned to look at the girl who was going down the rows and grabbing almost everything she passed. “I think anything…except licorice.”

They watched as she then grabbed a box of licorice.

“Nevermind, she likes everything.”

They watched as Tendo ran by them with an arm full of different types of pocky.

While everyone was looking, Minori had made her way to the front, purchased her haul, and disappeared outside to find a bench that she could start munching her candy on.

The boys were all very confused when they couldn’t find her.

“She can’t just disappear?!” Goshiki was close to screaming.

Shirabu was a bit smarter, he had made his way over to the elderly owner. “She went outside you idiots.” They all looked out the windows and spotted the small little pom-pom on the top of her hat.

They took turns checking out and once they were all done, the elderly man bowed to them. “Don’t eat all of that at once or you will get sick.”

The boys bowed as they left. Tendo basically ran out the door to give Minori the large bag of Konpeito he got her.

“I’m good, thanks though.”

Tendo blinked…”Wait no Ori-chan I got it for…”

“Merry Christmas!” Goshiki yelled as he held out a box of Kinoko no Yama, bowing his head and closing his eyes.

“Oh…” Minori blinked. “Uh Goshiki-kun you didn’t have to get…”

Everyone else held out the treats they had gotten her. She just blinked. “Uh I can’t eat all that.”

Shirabu’s brow lowered, “Well obviously not all at once…wait.”

He realized that the small girl had basically already finished the massive bag that she had gotten not even an hour ago. “How did you…?”

“Ori-chan remember to pace yourself,” Eita sighed as he chopped the girl on the head. He did notice that she was eyeing the sour hi-chews he had found. “Maybe we should hold onto these until you get home.”

She bit her bottom lip, now really wanting those chewy treats, but she knew Eita wasn’t going to budge. Instead she grabbed the last thing in her bag, a box of chocolate Hello Pandas.

She opened the box and started munching as she got up to throw the now empty bag into a trash can close by. “Well, now where to?”

“Christmas tree?” Eita looked at the others.

Goshiki and Tendo took the lead, the younger determined to get to the Christmas tree first. Ushijima waited for Minori to catch up with them, he looked at her out of the corner of his eye as they walked.

She smiled as she tossed another cookie into her mouth.

“You are going to sick eating all of that.”

She smiled up at him, and held the boxout to him. He did take some, throwing them in his own mouth. “If I do, it will be worth it.”

He hummed, but looked down to the bag in his hand. “They didn’t have the ones I wanted to get you…”

She looked over at him and smiled brighter. “Oh? And which ones did you want to get?”

Wakatoshi met her gaze as he said, “The one’s with the pink…”

She looked confused and he tried again. “You dipped it…the one you gave me when I got my first math problem right.”

Minori stopped and blinked. “Wow,” she whispered as she reminisced on handing him the strawberry yan-yan. That was strangely, sentimental? “It’s ok Ushijima,” she smiled up at him catching back up with him. Just the fact that he had told her that he wanted to get her the first treat that she had shared with him was Christmas present enough for her.

He took her pause in step to mean that she too was upset. “I will get them for you next Christmas.”

Minori sucked in her breath and snuggled her face into her scarf to hide her blush.

Yeah his words were enough of a gift for her. 


	17. Chapter 17

“Can we go back now?” Minori whined. “It’s coooooooooooooold.”

“That’s because you chugged your hot chocolate,” Eita joked.

“I didn’t want it to freeze.”

“You can come cuddle up with me Ori-chan,” everyone was waiting for the smack that they thought would be following that comment from Tendo.

No one was expecting Minori to shove herself under the red-head’s arm…not even said red-head.

His face was just as red as his hair.

“Jeez, you must be freezing,” Shirabu commented. “Maybe we should head back.”

“No I’m good,” Tendo stood very still as if moving would wake him from a dream. Minori glared up from under her hat.

“If you don’t start moving, I’m going to go over to Tata-kun.”

“Heading home right!” He threw his arm over her shoulder and held her close, enjoying every moment.

Ushijima was watching the whole exchange with a somewhat frustrated look on his face.

They group finally made it back to the ryokan close to midnight. Most of the lights were off, but Minori turned on the kitchen light when they entered through the back.

Everyone started to shed their layers. Minori had to sit on the ledge to unlace the boots she had decided to wear, most everyone headed back to her bedroom once they were out of their shoes and jackets. She had more layers and was having a particular issue with a knot on her left boot.

“Hnnn,” she sighed trying to pull at it again.

Ushijima, who had stuck behind to once again to organize everyone’s shoes, looked over to see the frustrated look on her face.

Minori wasn’t expected another set of hands to take the laces she held. She looked up and stared as Ushijima expertly undid the knot. “Thanks.”

He didn’t say anything, just stood back up and placed his jacket by the others, he kept hold of his scarf though. Minori took the boots off and not wanting to mess up Ushijima’s work, placed them by his large sneakers. Once her coat, hat, scarf and gloves were all put away, she also made her way down to her room.

It was empty when she went in, except that piles of candy laid on her desk by her bookshelf. The boys must have headed off to the baths. She sighed and considered going herself, but fatigue was settling into her shoulders. She shed her dress and got out of her tights, folding both up and setting them on top of the dresser. While she was pulling her pjs back out, the screen door slid open.

Minori held the pants in her hands against her exposed chest for some coverage and yelled “OUT!”

Goshiki froze. His senpai was…

Eita reached around him and shut the screen. “Geez idiot” Goshiki didn’t even move when Semi hit the back of his head. “Learn to knock, this isn’t your house!”

“Senpai’s…”

“What’s going on?” All of the guys had gone though a quick wash off, just ready to get into their warm futons.

Shirabu made his way around his stone-still junior and was about to open the shoji, but Eita held his hand on the screen, keeping it from moving.

“What is it with you guys not knocking?”

“It’s a shoji screen,” Shirabu glared. “How are you supposed to knock?”

Well, they had him there.

“Seriously,” Tendo sighed, “What’s going on?”

“Is everything alright?” Ushijima asked, being the last one to make his way closer to the room.

“Ori is changing…”

Everyone’s went straight to Goshiki, who still hadn’t moved. There was a small dribble of blood coming out of his nose. Tendo glared. “OF ALL THE…”

The shoji screen behind them slid open and an angry patron peaked their head out. “Keep it down…SOME of us are trying to sleep.”

Another voice further down the hall where they had just come from joined the conversation. “Hear hear!”

The patron slid the screen shut a bit harshly and the boys heard them mutter, “Stupid kids.”

Trying to whisper now, Eita glared at Goshiki and pulled his head back. “Don’t bleed on the floor.”

As the older teen was pushing the younger back down the hall to wash his face, Minori slid the screen open, a dark aura coming from her. “Goshiki can sleep in the hallway.”

“Are you alright Ori-chan?” Tendo was quickly making his way to her side, but no one expected Ushijima to shove him out of the way to make it to the short girl first.

In her haste to get clothes on she had missed a few buttons on her top. She stayed completely still as Ushijima bent down and fixed them for her, trying his best not to make contact with her.

When he stood back up, he looked down at her and asked quickly, “Are you alright?”. His eyes where surveying her, almost as if he was expecting physical damage of some sort.

“Other than the possibility of dying from embarrassment, I’m completely fine Ushijima. Stop fusing, you’re making it worse.”

Shirabu went around the two and made his way into the room, blushing as he passed by the small girl. Tendo was surprising quiet, but she still looked over to him and threatened. “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

He mimed zipping his lips shut.

Ushijima made her jump when he pat her head. She glared back at him.

“Stop that, just get in here so we can go to sleep and I can forget this whole thing.”

She turned and immediately made her way to her futon, pulling the comforter of her face.

When Goshiki and Eita came back, everyone glared at the slightly taller player.

“Uh, Shizaraki-senpai, you are very beautiful and I am so sorry!” He was bowing at the door before he entered even though she wouldn’t be able to see him.

Everyone turned to the bundled huddle by the outside door.

A small arm made its way out from under the cover and she held up a sign.

“Does that mean she forgives me?”

Eita gave him a sharp look, everyone else was looking at him as well. Even Tendo and Ushijima did not know that sign.

“She just said ‘fuck you’,” he pat his junior’s shoulder. “You are going to need a LOT more candy Tsutomu.”

Before everyone went to sleep, they pushed Goshiki’s futon as far away from the group as they could.

Ushijima woke again early in the morning, his body ready to go for a run.

He frowned as he realized that he was warmer than normal, and as he started to wake up even more, he realized that there was a small body right next to him. He was about to sigh, knowing that Shizaraki had moved during the night, but realized there was a slight difference from all the other times.

His left arm was wrapped around her, effectively locking her to his side.

A small blush worked his way to his cheeks. He took stock of the rest of the situation, her hand rested on his chest and her head was settled into the crook of his shoulder. There was a small puddle of drool on his shirt, and he took a deep breath. Her mouth was still open and he could hear her short breaths. Since her face was tilted up towards his, her curls were contained under his arm.

Wakatoshi took a moment to observe her relaxed face and it dawned on him that it become his habit to do so before he left for his run each morning.

There was a sudden tightness in his chest that he couldn’t explain, but for some reason it felt nice.

He sighed a bit, and considered. While he knew that he should shift her off, he had his morning exercise to complete after all, he realized that he was quite comfortable. Almost unintentionally, his arm tightened around the small body snuggled into him as he decided that he could wait until later to go for a run. 


	18. Chapter 18

“Get a picture…”

“Shh, Tendo, I’m trying to get the phone to focus.”

“This is going to be great blackmail later.”

Minori’s eyes fluttered open and automatically widened as she realized the situation. She sat quickly, and in turn woke Ushijima making him sit up as well. He was taking a bit longer to fully wake up as he blinked tiredly ahead of him.

“Did you get it Shirabu?”

“Yeah.”

Minori’s gaze quickly went to the phone in the blond’s hand.

She quickly crawled towards him, her hand going to grab the offending device. “Give that here now!”

Shirabu handed it off to Tendo who raced to the far side of the room. “Awe look how cute!”

Minori went after her new target, but became even more frustrated when the red-head held it above her head. “Damn you freaking tall monsters.”

“That’s mean Ori-chan.”

She put her hand on him to try and get a solid surface to help her jump. She still didn’t reach as he moved his arm further, almost baiting her at this point…so she punched him in the stomach.

He effectively dropped the phone, and it was picked up by the captain who had only recently stood up, wondering what all the commotion was about and missing the warmth of the extra body.

He looked down at the phone and saw the picture that his junior has taken. While it didn’t show on his face, he felt embarrassment that they had been caught. Almost robotically he deleted the picture just as Shirabu grabbed it back from him. “Good thing I already sent it to everyone on the team.”

Satori smiled and Minori’s face flushed the same color as his hair.

“I think…” Minori started, “…that it is time for you all to get out.”

“Alright, alright,” Eita sighed. “Let’s go start with chores.”

“Take your bags back to Tata-kun’s house before you do.”

“Wait…what?”

Minori didn’t blink as she looked at all the boys. “I think I have had quite enough of all your shenanigans.” She held her fingers. “I have been groped by Ushijima…”

Said boy’s face scrunched in confusion and he was about to ask something, but she continued.

“Seen nearly naked…”

Goshiki sat up from his futon, he had been pretending to be asleep. “I’M SO SORRY!” He bowed forward, and hit his head on his knees.

“And now you guys are taking embarrassing picture and sending them to people I don’t even know.”

Her voice was unwavering and Semi, Tendo, and Ushijima all recognized it from her tutoring sessions. She was being completely serious.

“I’m done with you volleyball blockheads.”

Everyone’s shoulders slumped forward.

“It’s Christmas,” Eita tried to smile to lighten the atmosphere. “Lighten it up a bit Ori-chan.”

Without moving her head, Minori’s gaze shifted to her childhood friend. Her lips pursed, and instead of saying anything, she shoved past everyone and grabbed a kimono and obi from her dresser, saying nothing as she turned back around and slamming the screen shut as she left the room.

Everyone stayed silent.

“Did you send that to everyone on the team?”

Shirabu turned to gaze up into the dark gaze of his captain, a dark aura surrounded him. He didn’t answer and instead turned away quickly.

Eita groaned. “We need to make a trip to downtown.”

Minori texted Haru asking if she could go over.

Haru responded that she was actually out and could swing by the ryokan before returning home for dinner with her family. Minori delivered breakfast to all the patrons, and her mother was worried at how quiet her daughter was, noticing the dark gloom that hovered over her.

By the time Haru arrived, Sara-san had made manju bunnies and had placed them in front of Minori who sat at the kitchen table.

“What’s that gloom about?” Haru grabbed one of the treats, signing a thanks to Shizaraki-san who was still hovering around her daughter.

Minori just groaned.

“That bad huh?” Haru popped the whole bunny into her mouth and grabbed another. “Well, I want to get in that onsen so let's go.”

While Minori sunk deep into the water with a full faced blush as Haru laughed at her story.

“Geez, if my parents hadn’t been so strict I would have taken you up on your sleepover request,” she said finally calming down. “It can’t be all that bad, you got some quality cuddles with your man!”

Minori didn’t lift her head from the warm water but glared at her friend which just made Haru laugh even more.

“You’ll be fine Ori-chan, they are just teasing you to get a rise. It’s what teenage boys do.”

“For a self proclaimed feminist, that’s sounds like a misogynistic justification,” Minori said as she finally lifted her head from the water.

Haru just shrugged and left it at that.

“You should at least talk to them about it.”

She clicked her tongue. “I will, but I’m going to let them squirm a bit.”

Haru smiled with a chuckle, “We still going to the shrine New Year’s?”

Minori nodded, “As long as I haven’t died from embarrassment.”

Haru chuckled again. She leaned forward and moved her arms through the water as she made over to the blushing girl. She threw her arm over her friend’s shoulder as she said. “Hey, I’m just a bus ride away…you came come visit Mochi too, he misses you.” Bringing up her cat always brought a smile to Minori’s face

Minori smiled, “He’s just such a good boy, has the chubbiest cheeks.”

“I have more pictures to show you…once you can convince me to get out of this AMAZING bath.” Minori smiled, some of the stress falling off her shoulders. 

Sara-san crossed her arms as she watched all the boys file in. She quickly signed at Semi. 

What is going on with Minori?’

Eita looked away from her. “We got cake.”

The boys watched as the woman’s curly hair seemingly started to float around her and a dark cloud appeared behind her. “Ok, ok,” he continued to sign and talk at the same time. “We may have taken a joke a little too far…”

The woman looked like she was going to choke the blond who held the cake out almost as a shield.

The boys were seemingly saved when a cat-eyed girl shoved the shoji screen from the hall open. An eyebrow rose as she looked at the giants who seemed to be shivering at the much smaller woman. Ushijima was the only one that didn’t seem scared, just very upset.

“Oi,” Haru called out. “Stop messing with my friend…” She walked over to the red-head that was in the front line. She poked him roughly in the chest as she continued. “…or the Shizarakis’ wrath is going to feel like a cool breeze compared to mine”

Ushijima remembered the sinister smile from the cantina when he saw it again. The girl was tall enough to reach his eye level and she bumped into him poking him in the shoulder. “You especially.”

The two younger boys in the back of the group jumped out of her way as she slipped on her shoes and grabbed her coat, forcefully opening the door and then slamming it behind her.

Turning back to Sara-san who was still glaring at them, she pursed her lips, crossed her arms and then turned from them. After going through the shoji that Haru had opened, she slammed it with her foot.

“Should we have gotten more cake?” Goshiki asked, shaking behind his seniors. 

There was a soft knock on Minori’s ‘door’. She flipped through the book that she held above her head but didn’t respond. There was one more knock before Eita and Tendo both poked their heads into the room. 

When they spotted the girl on the floor, their eyes widened and they backed up. Shirabu came forward and pushed in a plate, closing the screen after it was placed inside.

Minori’s eyes shifted over and she sat up when she saw the plate. Her brow furrowed as she observed the small cake. She crawled over to it and picked it up, looking it over and turning it side to side. “Pretty…” she whispered as she leaned forward to smell it.

The boys sat in the hall, all of them holding their ears against the screen. Which is why was when Minori shoved it aside quickly, Goshiki, Tendo and Eita all fell onto the bedroom floor.

She glared down at Eita.

“Is this from Cafe MythiQue?”

Instead of her childhood friend, Ushijima answered with a nod. “We have three others if you do not like this one.”

She pouted.”That isn’t playing fair Tata-kun…”

Everyone watched as she looked at the beautifully crafted cake, frosting built into a perfect little puff and blueberries surrounding it. “You knew I have been wanting to go there…”

Eita gave her a big smile. 

Everyone watched in anticipation as she took a large chunk out with the fork and stuck the whole bite in her mouth, her eyes closing as she enjoyed the bite.

All the boys held their breath, the ones on the floor not even bothering to move as they watched the smile spread across the girl’s face. When she opened her eyes though, she sharpened her gaze and scooted around so she wasn’t facing them. “I don’t think one will save you…”

Shirabu surprised everyone by sliding on the floors as he rushed to get up and make it back to the kitchen where they had left the other cakes.

The three boys on the floor smiled, Eita’s grin being the largest as he knew that they had at least bought a tiny bit of forgiveness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So since Texas is pretty much snowed in and we don't have power, I spent all of yesterday writing which is why I posted so many chapters.


	19. Chapter 19

“Why do you have some many of these?” Haru asked as Minori pulled a third furisode kimono out of a shelf in her mother’s room. Haru held the pattern up against her. They had decided to go all out on their trip to the shrine, Haru said it was because her resolution was to get a boyfriend and she wanted to stand out.

Minori went along with it, actually enjoying wearing the more traditional clothing. “Family hand-me-downs. They’re pretty expensive you know.”

“That’s EXACTLY why I asked.”

Minori pulled out an olive green one that sat at the very top shelf and smiled down at it. It was the one her father had bought for her. Pink and purple flowers spotted the edge of the sleeves, collar, and bottom.

“That yours?”

“Yup,” she smiled unfolding it and holding it out against her for her friend to see. “I didn’t get an obi with it, but…”

“But the kimono itself was enough.” Haru smiled. “And it’s perfect, you should wear that one.”

Minori bit her lip, and looked over to her mother who was overseeing the whole event. Sara-san was nodding with a large smile on her face. She even pushed her daughter aside as the dug through the folded obi and pulled out a deep purple with pink and gold embroidery. She signed ‘This one will go with it perfectly’.

Haru snapped her fingers at her, not signing, but knowing what Sara-san had said. “She’s right, you are going to draw a lot of eyes.” She gave Minori an eyebrow wiggle as she continued. “You’ll probably make even the so called ‘Super Volleyball Idiot’ drool after you.”

Minori grabbed and threw some padding at Haru who just chuckled.

Ignoring her friend’s violent tendencies, Haru help up a bright blue kimono with black, white and orange koi fish swimming along the edges. “What do you think about this one?”

Sara-san was nodding and even went over to her own jewelry box to pull out a kanzashi that had a jeweled koi on the end. Haru’s eyes grew wide when Shizaraki-san signed at her. “This one is yours?”

Minori’s mother nodded, and when Haru tried to fold it back up, Sara-san frowned and pushed the hair pin and the kimono back at her daughter’s friend, signing quickly.

“She says she wants you to wear it and that it’s not like she can anymore.”

They all knew that as a married woman it wasn’t appropriate for Sara-san to wear the furisode, but Haru felt like she may have stepped over a line. Minori should be the one to wear it.

“Seriously Haru,” Minori sighed. “If you want to grab a boyfriend or at least a cute guy at the shrine, that one will look great on you.”

The normally confident girl still questioned the kimono Sara-san had pushed back in her hands.

To push her friend over the edge and decide to choose that one, she pulled out a bright orange obi, which would definitely catch eyes. She tossed it into Haru’s lap. “Look, an ensemble put together by two women who know what they are doing. Now you HAVE to wear it.”

Haru gained back her confident smile. “Oh yeah, I’m going to walk away with SO many phone numbers.”

They both chuckled.

There were a few hours left before the sky darkened, and Haru for her part had quite a feat ahead of her. She had brought her own hair straightener over with her so that she could help Minori straighten her hair faster. Even with two straighteners, it still took almost a full hour to get the curls out of her hair. They decided to leave it down so that their hard work could be fully appreciated, but they did pull back the top half apart from the bangs that were too short.

Shizaraki-san twisted and placed in another kanzashi that reflected the flowers on the kimono into her daughter’s hair, smiling in to the mirror and she hugged her daughter’s shoulders.

“Damn you clean up nice,” Haru smiled and held her thumbs up. “Ushijima’s eyes will definitely be on you all night.”

“Please,” Minori waved. “They are getting together with all the other players on the team…” Minori looked back at the mirror turning her head back and forth, admiring how nice she looked with straight hair. “They are going to be too busy talking about volleyball to notice anything else.”

Haru chuckled, but didn’t say anything, giving Minori’s reflection a knowing look. Sara-san also signed into the mirror. ‘You look beautiful, Ushijima would be stupid not to notice.’

Minori’s eyes grew wide and she turned to stare at her mother. ‘What did you just say?’ she signed as well as said out loud.

Her mother for her part, closed her eyes and grinned at her daughter.

Minori glared. “You two are working against me.”

“No,” Haru folded her arms, “Both your mother and your best friend just want to see you get a man.”

Minori groaned and leaned her head back. 

The two girls clapped their hands in front of the shrine, bowing their heads to offer up a prayer for the new year.

After a moment, Haru turned her head towards her friend and opened one eye. “Want to go get an o-mikuji?”

Minori groaned and opened both her eyes. “I’ll go with you, but I am not grabbing one.” She turned and glared, “You know I got a curse last year.”

“Hehehe, but I got a future blessing.”

The two girls moved on, allowing the next people in the line to go up and offer their prayers.

“Oi Wakatoshi! What was with that picture?!”

Minori’s shoulders tightened and Haru’s sharp cat-like eyes zeroed in to where the voice came from. The tall group of males making it easy to spot.

A sinister smile came to Haru’s face. “HEY VOLLEYBALL IDIOTS!!!”

The group of teens straightened and looked over to the waving girl in a traditional furisode kimono, the long sleeves sweeping around her as she moved.

Eita’s eyes widened and he pointed over to her. “Uh isn’t that...”

Five pair of eyes in the group widened as the girl that had threatened them turned and revealed a girl they recognized. The straight hair threw them for a moment, but the large glasses and green eyes behind them were a dead give-away.

Tendo nearly ran over to the girls, the only thing holding him back being Eita’s hand on the hood of his hoodie. “Let the girls enjoy themselves Tendo.”

“But they look so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute! Look at those kimono!”

Ushijima watched as the small girl turned away, not seeing her hide her face as he focused on the complicated knot of her obi. He didn’t even realize that he was slowly walking towards her.

Naturally, his teammates followed their captain, a girl bundled up following close to a certain dark-skinned outside hitter smiling as she saw some other females finally.

The girl actually ran forward past Ushijima and grabbed the hands of Haru, whose eyes grew wide at the contact of random stranger.

“Thank the gods,” she girl sighed. “When I didn’t see any other girls part of the group I was worried!” The girl turned back to glare at Ohira for a minute, who quickly looked away.

“Uh…” Haru looked to Minori who shrugged. “Yeah…”

Reon finally spoke up, “This is Momoka…”

“Shina Mokoka,” the girl smiled.

“N-nice to meet you?” Haru was seriously at a loss, she wasn’t ready to interact with another female. Thankfully, Minori’s customer service personality kicked in. Minori closed her eyes and gave a bright smile.

“Haha, yeah, these guys sometimes don’t really think about anything other than volleyball…” her eyes opened as she grabbed the new girl’s hands. “We were just about to go get some o-mikuji, you want to come with us?”

Ohira, for his part just smiled, knowing his girlfriend didn’t exactly feel comfortable with all the guys and would feel much better with a female presence.

Momoka smiled. “Of course!” She turned back to the boys and raised a brow as if asking if they were going to join.

Ushijima, to everyone’s surprise started touching the shortest girl’s hair.

“Uh, Ushijima?” Minori asked, her heart beating faster as he held her hair in his large fingers. “What are you doing?”

Both Haru and Momoka had a knowing smile on their face.

Ushijima continued to touch the ends of her hair as he finally asked. “Why did you get rid of your curls Shizaraki?”

Minori just blinked. Thankfully Tendo cut in. “Ori-chan you look so cute with straight hair!”

“ANYWAYS!” Haru shouted grabbed her friend away from the tall ace. “O-mikuji.”

Momoka smiled, “Let’s go.” She turned back to the the boys and smiled putting her finger up to her mouth and smiling. “No boys allowed.”

Ohira blushed at his cute girlfriend, but the rest of the guys were too shocked to follow the girls as they scurried off.

“You guys make me wish I had worn a kimono,” Momoka said loudly as she nearly pushed the shorter girl towards the other end of very busy shrine. As she did so, she leaned in to whisper into Minori’s ear. “Ushijima eh? Well I can’t blame you there.”

Minori froze and Haru glared, hearing the hushed conversation.

Momoka continued to push the smaller girl forward. “It’s okay I won’t tell…”

The guys watched as the girls disappeared into the crowd. Tall enough to keep track of them, they didn’t worry too much as long as they could see them…and the majority of the team continued on to the shrine proper. 

Minori bit her lip and frowned as she looked down at the piece of paper, Haru was laughing behind her and Momoka frowned as she read over the shorter girl’s shoulder. They had convinced her to draw one but…

“You got a curse two years in a row!?! That is the best!”

Momoka, who had seemingly become fast friends with the two put a hard hand on Minori’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry Shizaraki-chan.” 

Minori groaned and went quickly over to tie her fortune off, ready to get it out of her hands.

“ARE YOU SERIOUS USHIJIMA!?” 

The girls looked over at the group of boys who had finished praying and had grabbed their own fortunes.

The tallest of the group held up his fortune, and Minori just glared at him after she caught the large font at the top. ‘Great Blessing’.

Minori rolled her eyes and turned away as Haru started laughing even harder at all this. “Haru stop it, let’s go get our stupid soba so I can call this a night.”

Ushijima seemed to perk up on hearing soba, quickly going to tie his fortune next to Minori’s.

Watching their captain quickly chase after the shortest of the unintentional party, the rest of the volleyball players quickly tied all their fortunes off and raced after the two. Momoka and Haru looked at each other and giggled. They raced forward, Momoka grabbed onto Ohira, and Haru throwing her arms over both Tendo and Eita. 

They all sat on the porch right outside of Minori’s bedroom, the open shoji screen behind them, and the entire group sipped their soba noodles and watched the sun rise.

It hadn’t really been Minori’s idea, but Haru and Eita insisted on bringing everyone to the ryokan to watch the first sunrise of the new year. Sara-san had also already made a huge batch of soba noodles for the guests so there were plenty to go around.

Minori sighed as she held the bowl, now empty except for the broth. On either side of her sat Tendo and Ushijima, both of whom were turned towards teammates and conversing with them. Haru seemed to be flirting with another red-head on the team, and Momoka rested her head on Ohira’s shoulder as the stared forward at the tiny sliver of sun.

Minori caught herself sighing once more as she set the bowl of soup on the ground below her swinging feet. As she pulled back a bit, she realized that both boys next to her had their feet firmly planted on the ground. She pursed her lips, mentally cursing her short legs. Not completely pulling herself back up, she rested her elbows on her thighs and held her head in her hands pouting.

Tendo turned to her with a curious glance. “Oooooori-chaaaaaaaaan…why the long face?”

Her lips pursed even further. She skirted around the true issue, that she was tired and felt a bit left out in this group. “Just thinking what form that curse is going to take. Hopefully doesn’t affect my entrance exams.”

She jumped when a heavy hand fell on her left shoulder.

“You are smart,” Ushijima said, almost with pride, “You will be fine.”

Minori closed her eyes and sighed once again, not responding to that…but when his hand moved down her back to pick up a bit of her hair, she turned to him quickly.

“Your hair is starting to curl again.”

Minori looked down at the ends of her hair, picking up a strand to see that it indeed was starting to curl again. “Ugh,” she moaned as she fell back onto the wooden porch.

“Why did you change it?” Ushijima asked, leaned over her.

She threw an arm over her face. “I just wanted to have pretty hair for a little bit.”

Ushijima thought on that for a moment, before turning back to the sun, which was slowly rising over the horizon.

“I like it when it is curly.”

She removed her arm for a moment, looking at the back of the tall teen’s head.

“Yeah me too!” Tendo cut in.

Haru leaned over from her conversation. “She is pretty no matter what her hair looks like idiots!”

This all culminated in Goshiki, the youngest in the group standing up and with a blush yelling out.

“SHIZARAKI-SENPAI IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL!”

It was basically a pavlovian response since the night the he had accidentally walked in on her. Any time Shizaraki-senpai’s physical appearance was brought up…

Everyone blinked at the bowl-cut teen. Kawanishi Taichi, the red head that Haru had been talking with asked quickly, “Uh do you have a crush on her?” Goshiki jumped and held his arms in an ‘X’ in front of him, but he didn’t deny it and the darkening of the blush on his face led everyone else to chuckle and assume the comment was true.

“UGH,” Minori pressed her arm back into her face. “The curse begins.”

Ushijima once again made her jump as he grabbed her hand. “I will give you some of my luck then.”

She moved her arm to hide the blush that spread across her face.

The ace continued to hold her hand until the sun had fully risen and the team members started to comment that they should head back home.

Minori and the five players that had stayed with her over the holiday waved to the others as they tiredly walked away from the hotel. Haru hung behind and gave her smaller friend a tight hug, whispering to her before she left.

“Don’t waste the last semester Ori, tell the guy.”

Haru winked at Ushijima over her friend’s shoulder, but no one could tell exactly who she had aimed it at. Five teens all tilting their heads in confusion.

“We’ll see,” Minori smiled as Haru pulled back.

The cat-eyed girl pouted, and flicked her friend’s forehead.

Minori brought a hand up to rub the offended spot, but continued to smile at her friend as she walked off.

“I’ll give you back the kimono back when classes start,” she said as she waved over her shoulder.

Once Minori couldn’t see her friend any more she turned back to all the boys, most of whom looked like they were dead on their feet.

She also felt her shoulders fall in exhaustion, her eyes heavy. “Let’s go rest for a bit.”

No one argued with her and they all turned to go back inside. Ushijima and Eita waiting for her before closing the door behind them.

The futons had not yet been pulled out and the outside screens were still open. Even though it was cold, Minori didn’t bother closing them, instead she just pulled out the futons, not even preparing them properly. The boys helped her as best they could although Tendo and Goshiki pretty much passed out as soon as the futons they had grabbed were on the ground.

When all of them were on the floor, Minori began to undo the obi that was done behind her back. While Eita was about to go over to help her, he paused as soon as he saw Ushijima pulling the fabric out of the complicated knot. The girl just let him and even let him help her out of the outer robe. She still was the one to fold everything up and set it on her dresser to be returned to her mother’s room later. She stayed in the undergarments and white nagajuban as she went back to the futon and just fell forward, sighing before she finally fell asleep.

Ushijima sat in seiza, looking down at the girl’s prone body.

“Should we close the shoji?” He asked Eita, but unfortunately the blond had also laid down and fallen asleep.

The ace continued to look outside at the rising sun as he laid down. He lowered his gaze to see the small curls that had started coming through at the ends of Minori’s hair rise and fall with her short breaths. 


	20. Chapter 20

“Tata-kun.”

Eita’s eyebrows rose and he turned quickly at the sound of his nickname. His teammates were also surprised and bent to look around him noticing the girl that had attended the New Year’s gathering about a month ago.

“My dearest Ori-chan!” Satori squealed.

The girl’s face that already looked frustrated turned her gaze to glare at the red head. “Tendo.”

“What is it Ori-chan?” Eita finally asked, grabbing her attention from the red-head.

She turned back to her friend with a deep sigh said, “I need your help.”

Eita’s eyes widened and a smile twitch on his face. Thinking back to all the times she had given him a hard time about him doing what she was currently doing. He bent down raising his hand to his ear.

“I’m sorry,” he chuckled. “What was that?”

Not being ready, he yelped when she grabbed him by the ear and pulled him further down to her. In a louder voice and right in his ear, she repeated. “I need help.”

Once she let him go, he stood back up, rubbing his ear. “Right, right, I got it. So what do you need?”

She looked at the gym floor. Again, before he was ready, Minori grabbed his wrist and tugged him with her as she turned around and walked towards the exit. He tumbled but let her lead him away. The rest of the team members just watched as the pinch server was basically dragged out of the gym.

"Wonder what that was about," Ohira commented.

After a walk across campus, they finally came to stop in front of the 3-A classroom, Minori’s class. There was a board with papers, much like his own classroom. Most of the board was covered with posters of he upcoming Sports Festival, but Minori pointed to a simple white paper with a list of names on it.

“This,” she said pointing to her name, “Is a problem.”

Eita looked at it, and then scanned up to the top of the paper.

_3-A TEAMS FOR SPORTS FESTIVAL_

He scanned down, realizing that the list was which students were assigned to which sports. Eita went back down to Minori’s name and then to the sport she was listed under. A huge smile broke out on his face and he started to laugh.

She has been assigned to the volleyball team.

He held his stomach and bent over, tears brimming in his eyes. His friend punched him in the shoulder. “It’s not funny Tata-kun.”

“Oh it’s hilarious!”

She frowned looking back down to the floor. “I got lucky the last two years with the relay race…” she looked back over to him, his hands where resting on his knees as he still tried to pull himself together. “…But we know how bad my hand eye coordination is.”

He had calmed down a bit, “And how short you are.”

This time she kicked him in the shin, but it didn’t seem to phase him at all.

“I need you to help me practice.”

Eita finally pushed himself up and looked down at her from his full height. “So what do I get in return?”

Minori groaned, but kept eye contact. “What do you want?”

Eita thought, but couldn’t think of anything at the moment. He settled for something that he could hold against her until he came up with something good. “One favor, that I can call on at anytime.”

Her frowned deepened, but she didn’t hesitate before quickly answering.

“Done.”

“Ori-chan, come on it can’t be that hard.”

The girl turned to glare at the tall blonde.

They both were in the empty gym, Eita in his practice clothes and Minori in her regular gyms clothes, the shirt a little bagger then it should have been. Her curls had been pulled back into a ponytail to keep them out of her face.

“Tata,” she said shifting the ball she held under her arm. “I do tea ceremony and flower arrangement. Sports are NOT my thing.”

“Yeah but you can’t even hit the ball!”

“It’s going to hit me in the face!” “I’m not going to hit you! I’m a setter I know how to….”

Both of them jumped when they heard the gym doors open. A few of the volleyball players walked in, also in practice clothes. Eita knew there was practice today, so they were probably just looking to play a fun round.

Minori spotted a certain tall ace very quickly. Eita heard her catch her breath and immediately look at the floor, hearing his friend that never cursed, muttered a quiet “Shit.”

Well, Eita thought, maybe they would be able to help his hopeless friend.

Tendo ran over to both of them as soon as he saw the small girl. He picked her up and spun her around. “Ori-chan! You look so cute in your gym clothes!”

“TENDO PUT ME DOWN!!!” While the red head continued to pester the curly haired girl, the other team members came closer. Ushijima kept his eyes focused on the red-head and the small girl.

“What are you guys doing?” Shirabu asked.

Eita sighed. “Trying to teach this hopeless case the basics so she doesn’t embarrass herself during the Sports Festival.”

She spoke once Tendo finally put her down, raising her hands to hide her tomato red face. “Too late, already embarrassed now.”

“You got volleyball?!” Tendo laughed at her. “But you are so…”

“Short, yes I know. Tata-kun has only pointed that out fifteen times since we started today.”

“Did you pick volleyball?” Ohira spoke up.

She looked at the gym floor. “No, they did a raffle.”

Wakatoshi finally spoke up, having been slightly distracted by seeing the girl in a T-shirt and shorts for the first time. He didn’t think that he had ever seen her bare arms or legs. Like her face, she was pale, seeming like she didn’t see much sun.

“What do you need help with?”

Eita and Minori answered at the same time. “Everything.”

Tendo laughed, but pat Minori’s head. “Oh Ori-chan, I’ll be more than happy to help Semi-semi get you up to par.”

She moved out from under his hand. “Normally I would say ‘never in your life’,” she turned away for a moment, “but I don’t think I can turn down any help at this point.”

“Why don’t you just let all the other people on the team take over?” Shirabu spoke up.

Minori looked up quickly, seeming confused. “Why wouldn’t at least put my all into it? I’m the Class Rep, I need to show everyone in the class some motivation so they try their best.” She looked away for a moment and then whispered, “Also I really like to win.”

Everyone was impressed by the small speech, but especially an enthusiastic first year.

“I will definitely help you Shizaraki-senpai!” Goshiki shouted, holding up a first in determination.

The captain of the team nodded and stepped over to the girl who had helped him so much in the past, happy that he could finally return the favor. “Let’s see your serve first.”

Minori looked at the ground and Eita cleared his throat. “Uh we tried that…and had to stop to work on….well.”

“Hitting the ball.”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

“I don’t want it to hit my face.”

Wakatoshi just looked down at her, a bit surprised, but the emotion not showing on his face. “Did you have her hit the ball against the wall?”

Eita nodded. “She was doing well with that so we tried to move to the court…”

“Then maybe start on receives?”

“Yeah that’s what we were doing when you guys came in.”

Wakatoshi nodded.

“I’ll start!” Tendo shouted, running to the other side of the net.

Eita walked over to the captain, and put a hand on his shoulder. “You may want to sit out on this Ushiwaka.” The others around them all nodded.

Not arguing with them, he stepped off the court, crossing his arms and turning to watch the shortest person in the gym.

He rose a brow when he saw her just standing there. She didn’t look like she was ready for the ball which is why he was surprised when Satori asked if she was ready and she nodded.

The red head must have been surprised as well because he asked again.

“Yes Tendo, get it over with.”

Wakatoshi looked quickly over to Eita, who was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just watch Ushijima…”

He did, turning back just as Satori lightly sent the ball over the net. Not a serve, more like a chance ball, very high and not a lot of force behind it.

Minori’s head was tipped back looking at the ball as it came closer to her. Everyone thought in their minds that you would jump to hit it back over the net. Minori just stood there, continuing to watch the ball, until…

Everyone almost groaned when they saw her close her eyes, and then try to hit the ball, missing by a good 2 inches. The gym was completely silent as the ball hit the court and the silence stretched for almost a whole minute.

“Well,” Satori said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We have some stuff to work on.”

Everyone else seemed to be wondering if they should just walk out.

Eita looked over at his captain, and saw the taller man’s eye twitching. The ash blond’s patience had already waned, and everyone was surprised when Yamagata Hayato walked up to her.

“Let’s work on your stance first.” Being the libero, he felt like he would have the most to teach her on receives.

The short girl turned to look up at him. “My stance?”

Hayato bent over and spread his feet, like he was getting ready to receive. “Like this.”

Minori tried to follow his form. He looked over and frowned. “Mm, not quite.”

She wasn’t quite ready for him to grab her ankle and pull it lightly, so she started to fall forward, Hayato caught her though. The two didn’t hear the multiple intakes of breath, but they did hear Satori’s “Who said you could touch my Ori-chan?!”

Ignoring him, Minori righted herself, accepting the libero’s apology quickly and getting back into her ‘stance’. Hayato went to grab her ankle again, as Tendo stomped over to them, his eyes asking permission from Minori before touching her again. She gave him a nod.

“So this needs to go a bit further out…”

“Hang on a sec…Tendo, back on the other side of the net!”

“But…”

Minori had already turned back to the man correcting her stance. “What is your name?”

“Oh, it’s Yamagata. Now, bend your knees a little more.”

She nodded, doing so.

“Not that far, here…”

Hayato felt a shiver go down his spine as he touched the girl’s leg, getting her to bend the way that he wanted. He looked over to where he could feel someone staring him…

…He was thrown when he realized it was coming from the side lines.

Ushijima’s face looked no different from normal, but there seemed to be a dark aura around him. The captain had stopped looking at Minori and seeing everything she needed improvement on, but at Hayato.

There was something tight in his chest as he watched the libero touch his tutor.

“Uh,” Hayato said turning back to Minori, but taking his leg off her leg. “That’s good. Now when the ball comes towards you, make sure to watch it the whole time, don’t close your eyes.”

“I…” Minori blushed. “Didn’t know I was closing my eyes.”

Hayato chuckled, “It’s alright. Now that you know, you’re less likely to do it. Satori, send her another one!”

Even though he was still pouting, Tendo did so. It was another high chance ball, Minori told herself that she wasn’t going to blink until the ball hit the ground.

She watched the thing, keeping an eye on it as it came down towards her. With her eyes open, she tried to hit the ball. Her hand made contact, but just went straight back up. She took a deep breath, a smile stretching across her face.

Again, watching from the sideline, Wakatoshi kept his eyes on her. Upon seeing the smile, the tightness in his chest dissipated. A sense of pride replaced it.

“Try to hit it again!” Hayato shouted.

Minori got back into the stance he had showed her and watched the ball again. She hit it once more, this time it went forward and straight into the net.

She stood back to her regular height, but grimaced at the net. Hayato was already coming back towards her, “Great job!” He held his hand up as if waiting for a high five.

Minori went for it and jumped, trying to hit his hand. She did but lost her balance and fell forward into him. Hayato, for his part, kept his composure and made sure that she had regained her balance before letting her go completely.

“Sorry,” Minori said as she blushed. Hayato removed his hand from her shoulder, but both of them jumped when another hand came down onto her shoulder.

Minori’s blush deepened as she was pulled back, and realized WHO had grabbed her shoulder.

“I will take over from here.”

Hayato couldn’t meet his captain’s gaze, he just nodded and looked away quickly. “S-Sounds g-great Ushijima.”

Everyone was wondering exactly what their captain was doing. Tendo and Semi especially were watching him carefully, both with small smiles on their faces. 

An hour later, Minori was doing well enough with basic receives that the boys had started an easy-going game. Ushijima still stood on the side watching Minori closely, watching for what they should focus on improving next.

Everyone had noticed that Ushijima was not averse to correcting the small girl’s position by touching her, just as Hayato had. However, his touch seemed to linger longer. Whatever he was doing seemed to be working though.

Minori was effectively keeping the balls up and the boys were able to get them back over. While she couldn’t dig just yet, most of the boys on the other side, aimed for Minori so she could practice. They were sending her some harder balls, no spikes, but not as light as the ones she had started with.

A few of the boys started getting a little into it, starting to play more like a regular practice game since Minori was doing so well. The most energetic of the team, a first year with a bowl cut, got a little too excited.

Not quite thinking where he was aiming, Goshiki went in for a spike…

…Right into Minori’s face.

Everyone was quiet.

Minori was the one that broke the silence. She smiled and looked up at Goshiki who was standing on the other side of the net his hands waving all around him, not knowing what to do.

“That didn’t hurt as much as I…”

She stopped when she felt something warm drip down her chin.

That’s when Goshiki yelled and a palpable breath was heard in the room. Minori rubbed her hand under her nose and felt the warm liquid. When she pulled her hand away, it was deep red.

Before her brain finally caught up and she realized her nose was bleeding, There was some sort of fabric being pushed onto her dripping nose, and a hand pushing her head down…pretty roughly.

Goshiki shut up the moment that his captain looked up from the injured girl. The first year had never been THIS scared of the taller ace. All the other team members even backed up a step, except Tendo who was fussing around Minori and Eita who kept his sharp gaze on their captain.

Minori reached up to pat the hand holding her head down and forcing her face into the towel. When Ushijima fell back a bit in surprised, she gasped. “Not so rough Ushijima!”

He blinked and stepped fully away, leaving her to hold the towel to her face. “I apologize,” he said as he took another step back. He was not aware of how much pressure he had been putting on her, he was more furious at his kohai for the whole incident.

“Tendo,” Minori looked up with the towel still to her face, everyone noticing that it was steadily turning more red. “Stop that and shut up, I’m fine.”

Goshiki was finally able to stop shivering and turn back to the shorter senior. “Ah Shizaraki-senpai, I am so sorry!” Minori thought he looked like a dippy bird, bowing so quickly.

With her hand still holding the towel she dipped under the net and patted the kid’s head. “Goshiki-kun, it’s alright,” she smiled at him as best she could with the towel in her face. “It was an accident.”

She turned to all of the much taller boys, “You guys act like I’m made of glass or something.”

“You’re just so small….” Kawanishi said in a very quiet voice.

The boys saw her brow furrow, “Short doesn’t mean weak.”

“Yeah she was pushed out of a tree when we were like six. Ori just climbed back up and knocked the guy who had pushed her off in turn.” Semi smiled as he remembered the kid’s face. “HE was the one that ran home crying.”

“I’m a lot tougher than I look.” She put the hand that wasn’t holding the towel on her hip, trying to go for a more tough appearance.

“You should go to the infirmary though,” Ushijima said, going under the net as well and grabbing her upper arm, making sure to check his grip.

“For a nose bleed? Really Ushijima? Look, it’s already stopped!”

She pulled the towel away but was surprised when blood still trickled steadily. Goshiki started screaming again and Tendo ran back over to grab her other arm.

With just a look, Tendo and Ushijima picked her up and started to make their way to the door.

“What…WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!”

Eita wasn’t too far behind, trying to get the girl another towel and holding it to her face while the other guys were moving her.

“PUT ME DOWN YOU IDIOTS!!”

The spectacle drew quite a few onlookers as the quartet made their way across campus.

Most assumed that the culprit was none other than the volleyball captain herding the girl to the infirmary.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, 21 chapters in, let's get this romance rolling.

Minori sat at the edge of the infirmary bed glaring at Ushijima and drinking the strawberry milk the nurse had given her to help replenish her blood sugar after her nose finally stopped bleeding. The tissues were still shoved into her nostrils though, and her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment at the whole incident.

Wakatoshi, for his part, just stared back at her.

“I’m fine,” she nearly growled. “Go back to the gym with the others.”

“You need to go and lay down, that’s what the nurse said.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you going to walk me to my dorm and make sure I lay down?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes and groaned. While her stomach was fluttering at the same time because her crush was paying attention to her, it was overridden by the frustration she felt at his hovering. She went to hop down from the bed and stand up. “I am fi..” 

And then she got dizzy, dropping her milk and having to catch herself on the bed. Ushijima also moved fast and his hand went around her waist, easily supporting her weight.

Her face turned red and turned her face up to look at the taller boy. Wakatoshi also had a blush on his cheeks and he unintentionally tightened his grip and pulled her closer. Minori’s eyes widened, also being aware of what he was doing. She poked him in the shoulder lightly.

“Hey I’m ok now, you can let go.” He was sending her heart into a flurry.

He didn’t let go however, and Minori watched as his brow lowered.

She knew that look, it was one she had seen multiple times during tutoring. He was confused, but she wondered what he was confused about.

Meanwhile, in the mind of the taller ace, he was working through the confusion he displayed.

He didn’t want to let Shizaraki go, but he didn’t quite know why. Not only did he not want to let her go, but he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He wanted her to stay by his side, and not just right now. He had begun to notice it after the holidays, when they returned back to the dorms, he caught himself wondering if she was doing alright. He would seek her out in the hallways and cantina just to make sure.

Wakatoshi had been so frustrated when he watched his teammate touching her earlier. When he took over, he found his fingers almost tingle when he touched her. He kept focusing on how much he liked the way she looked in her gym clothes, the kimono she wore, her sleeping clothes. He liked how unruly her hair was, and then he remembered the night that he had held her against him as he slept. He wanted that again.

Everything about this girl…he wanted her.

But, he thought, you can’t keep another human being. She wasn’t a pet. Maybe he wanted her in a different way?

It was then he realized that as much as he wanted her, wanted to see her and keep her close by, he had already accepted the offer from the Adlers in Tokyo.

Wakatoshi suddenly needed to know what her plans were after high school.

“What are your plans after high school?”

Minori did a slow blink. Where in the world did that come from? He also still hadn’t let go of her and she was reaching her limit. Her mind also racing through the image of his muscular legs, his powerful serve, the feel of him against her earlier. She put her hands on his chest and pushed slightly. His arm didn’t release its iron grip around her waist however.

“Uh,” she looked down at his arm as she finally answered. “I got accepted in to Todai, I was going to start the semester after we graduate.”

Wakatoshi’s eyes widened. “You are going to Tokyo?”

She tried pushing him once more, still nothing. “Yeah, why?”

He didn’t say anything, his brow creasing again, but this time Minori knew it was in concentration. After a moment, he finally released her and she took a good few steps back.

“Uh,” she cleared her throat keeping her gaze strictly on the ground. “I am going to go back to the dorms now. I think I’ve had enough practice for today.”

He nodded and moved out of the way so she could get around him to leave. His mind was back to thinking, Sumida and Bunkyo were not too far from each other. He would probably still be able to check in on her often.

He paused in thoughts and blinked. Wait, he thought, why am I…?

He turned and walked after Minori, remembering first off that he wanted to walk her back to the dorms, but he also realized he needed to talk to his best friend.

“What are you doing Ushijima?” Minori asked once she realized that the volleyball captain was following her.

“Walking you back to the dorms. I said I was going to do so.”

She groaned. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, but I am fine. You’re acting like a mother hen again.”

“You are dizzy, and I am not a hen.”

“No I’m not!” She didn’t even touch that second one, the guy couldn’t take a joke sometimes.

“You almost fell when you got out of the bed.”

“And now I have my equilibrium back.”

He didn’t budge on the matter, and they continued to bicker until they had made it back to the dorms. Right in front of her door, actually.

“Ushijima,” she turned to him, hoping he didn’t plan on following her in. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but go away.”

“Go lay down.” She rolled her eyes and gave him a fake salute. “Aye aye captain.”

He nodded and then turned and walked down the hall. A tight tension left Minori’s shoulders as closed her door, and crawled into her bed. She actually was very tired, but more from the stress that Ushijima had caused than the blood loss.

As Minori closed her eyes, she thought back to the infirmary and a blush came to her cheeks as she realized that the entire time he held her, all she wanted to do was reach up and kiss him. 

“Satori.”

The red head looked down from the top bunk, to his friend and roommate that was sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk. Wakatoshi’s face had a weird look to it, very strange for his captain.

“You look constipated, what’s up?”

Wakatoshi stayed quiet for a moment as he thought of how to word his question.

“How do you know that you like Shizaraki?”

Satori smirked, he had seen how Wakatoshi had been acting around the girl lately. He just thought the big lug would figure it out on his own. He should have know better. They didn’t call him the ‘Super Volleyball Idiot’ for nothing.

“Well,” his eyes creased as his smile grew. “I don’t actually LIKE her…”

Wakatoshi looked up, his eyebrows raised in confusion. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Satori continued.

“More like I like teasing her, her flustered face is super cute you know. Also tsundere girls are cute. I don’t think I would really want to date her though.”

It was kind of a lie. Satori would like to go on a date, but he knew a hopeless case when he saw one, and the looks that the tutor had been throwing the ace since second year gave him the hard truth that he wasn’t going to be able to win her over no matter how he tried.

He did know that telling his friend, who was obviously struggling with his emotions, that he didn’t want to go after Shizaraki would maybe make the guy go for it.

“Why the sudden interest in Ori-chan?”

Wakatoshi stayed quiet, so Tendo smiled again and supplied random reasons.

“Is it because she looks so sexy in her gym clothes?”

Wakatoshi couldn’t stop the blush that dusted his checks. “Her determination is admirable.”

“Yeah but we both know that her short little legs looked great in those shorts.”

The captain stood quickly. “I am going for a run.”

“Gotta get those frustrations out, gotcha,” Satori teased as he went back to reading his manga on the top bunk.

He frowned once his friend that couldn’t see him anymore. He pulled his cellphone out and scrolled through the numbers, stopping on Semi’s. 


	22. Chapter 22

“Ori-chan!”

Minori tried to see over the crowd of students where her name was being called from but couldn’t tell from her lowered vantage point. When she saw Eita heading for her with his hand raised, she headed over to him.

“Hey I wanted to catch you before classes ended. Were you going to try and practice again today?

She put her hands on her hips. “That was the plan wasn’t it?”

Eita looked up, “Well we can, but we have practice.”

“Uh…isn’t it the off season?”

“We are training the second and first years, and some of us still planning for division teams after graduation.”

Minori rolled her eyes. “Yeah you guys are crazy.”

“Anyways…” Eita lowered his brows at her. “You may have to come a little later…”

“Or,” she held a finger up. “I can come watch.”

Eita frowned. “Yeah, Washijo-sensei isn’t too much into ‘fan girls’.”

“Oh but he likes me…”

Eita looked confused and a large smile spread across her face. “I brought you your underwear remember.”

The tall teen turned red and looked away from the shorter girl.

She chuckled. “Look, I’ll just ask if I can and tell him what’s going on. If he says no I’ll leave and you can text me when you are done. Sound good?”

He sighed but nodded, putting his finger and thumb on the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Sounds good.”

“Then I will see you later Tata-kun.”

When Minori made her way into the gym, the boys were off doing their warm up jog.

She spotted the shorter coach talking with a group of taller ones and made her way over, waiting for them to finish their conversation. He turned her way when he saw her in his periphery, his brow already lowered when he said. “No girls during…”

He remembered that mop of curls, even if was in a ponytail. “Hey, aren’t you that girl that brought Semi underwear over the break?

She smiled and bowed at the older man. “Hai, I am. I wanted to ask a very large favor Washijo-sensei…”

She paused for a moment to see if he would let her continue but his face quickly turned to frustration when he thought she was taking too long. “Well spit it out.”

“Uh you see,” she moved her right hand behind her head and looked away from his piercing glare. “I was picked to be on the volleyball team for my class during the Sport’s Festival…”

“YOU?!” The coach’s eyes widened. “Just how did that happen?”

“Raffle…”

“Just talk to the Class Rep and change it.”

“Well first, I wouldn’t want them to make an exception and let me change but no one else…and second, uh I AM the Class Rep.”

Washijo’s eyes narrowed again, but before he could speak up she continued. “If I just tell them I want to change what sport I drew, then it could cause everyone else to do the same… Eita-kun is my friend so I asked him for help and he was helping me the past few days…Well actually, everyone on the team was helping…”

“Everyone?”

She nodded, “Goshiki-kun actually hit me in the face yesterday…”

“And you came back?”

“Well one nose bleed isn’t going to stop me.”

Washijo-sensei suddenly saw a flash of red hair in his vision. That annoying little boy from Karasuno acted the same way as the girl in front of him.

“Anyways, I wanted to see if it would be ok if I watched practice today…” Before he even said anything, she held her hands up, “If not it is fine, I will just let Eita…”

“FINE!” He turned away and walked away from her, “You can watch if you want to, just don’t be a distraction.”

Minori couldn’t stop the small smile on her face. “Of course sensei!” She bowed once more even though he no longer looked at her. 

Ushijima took a step back when he went to re-enter the gym. Sitting right beside Washijo-sensei on the bench was a familiar curly little ponytail. She was talking animatedly with the assistant coaches that was standing next to her.

That wasn’t what made him pause though.

She was in her gym clothes again, the difference from yesterday was that the shirt she wore today was…different. Yesterday, she had been wearing the baggy shirt that was part of the school’s uniform gym clothes. She had gotten blood on that one yesterday so of course she would have changed.

But…

He had never seen her wear something that stuck to her like that shirt did.

Ohira bumped into his back, not paying attention. “Oi Ushijima what’s…”

He looked around, and saw the small student on the bench. At this point she had noticed them and gave them both a small wave. Ohira waved back and then looked over to Ushijima, “All good there captain?”

Everyone had talked about it when he left with her to the infirmary the other day…they definitely saw something between the small girl and their giant captain.

Ushijima nodded, and took a breath, closing his eyes for a moment before he continued to the court.

When Tendo came in, he immediately called out. “Ori-ch…!!!”

Minori cut her hand across her throat and nodded to Washijo beside her. Tendo immediately shut up and when Eita followed him in and saw her sitting there, he just rolled his eyes. Of course she would convince their hard-ass of a coach, he thought.

After stretching and a light warm up of fifty serves and fifty receives, Minori already felt tired just watching them, but it was time for a few five on five practice matches.

The teams were separated with Ushijima, Semi, and Hayato being on one side and Tendo, Shirabu, and Goshiki on the other. Minori didn’t really know the others that were on the courts but she tried to pay attention while Washijo-sensei was telling her which member played which position. She just nodded, not knowing what the heck he was talking about. She sighed, she just wanted to be able to hold her own for the Sport’s Festival.

Ushijima was trying his best to focus, and he met Tendo’s gaze on the other side of the net. Tendo however, was in the mood to get a rise out of the guy, especially since their conversation the other night.

“You know,” he whispered as they waited for the coaches to blow the whistle and start the game. “I didn’t know that Ori-chan had curves. I would have thought that she was flatter then a board with all those loose clothes and kimono she wore. What a nice surprise…”

Wakatoshi felt his mouth turn down and his gaze turned sharp onto the red-head. Something in his chest felt tight at those words.

Minori watched as Semi served, her head tilting as she tried to focus on how he did it. Once the ball was in the air, she simply tried to follow it. She watched as it was tossed around on the other side, sent back over the net where it got to Eita who tossed it up and….

Then she blinked and the ball had hit the other side and bounced off towards the ceiling.

Minori just stared for a moment. She remembered having seen Ushijima play during the match, but being this close it was almost…scary.

“JEEZ TOSHI DIAL IT BACK SOME!”

She looked over to Tendo who’s eyes were wide. “YOU NEARLY TOOK OFF A FINGER!”

“Well he didn’t take anytime warming up,” Washijo muttered and resituated himself on the bench.

“Hmm?” Minori asked, looking over to the coach as one of the ball boys tossed Eita another ball.

“Normally Ushijima starts off slower, gets in a warm up…” Washijo-sensei’s eyes didn’t leave the tallest member. The ace didn’t look like that spike was anything, special but the coach knew that had a lot more power to it than he normally gave during practice. “But he went zero to one hundred today.”

Minori scrunched her brow just as the whistle blew and Eita served again.

Just like last time, when the ball came to Ushijima it disappeared and wasn’t even seen again until the point was made and the ball was back in the air.

After watching that song and dance for two more rounds, Minori felt her eye twitch.

Before Semi could serve again, she yelled out, “Ushijima slow it down, I’m trying to see what you are doing you idiot!”

Once she realized that she had yelled and that not only was Ushijima was looking at her wide eyed, but the rest of the team, she felt tendrils of a very dark aura appear beside her.

Her hands went over her mouth and she turned wide-eyed to Washijo-sensei who was glaring at her. She bowed her head just as Washijo shouted.

“WHAT PART OF DON’T BE A DISTRACTION DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!”

“I’m sorry sensei…I”

“And Ushijima, she’s right, let the other players practice!”

Minori kept her head bowed but watched as the tall ace also bowed his head to the coach.

“Now, again!"

“Like this?”

Minori threw the ball up and tried to hit it as a serve. It got no more than a meter and then fell back to the sandy outside court. The girl’s eyes squinted and she frowned in frustration. She kicked some of the sand up. The two of them had moved outside while other team members played after practice and were putting up the equipment. There was a small outside court that they had taken over to practice serves.

Eita sighed, “Ok maybe we need to try underhand serves.”

“Huh?”

“It’s where you hit it under,” he mimed hitting the ball from underneath as he held it with his other hand.

“None of you did that.” Minori looked up at her friend with a questionable look.

“Well,” he sighed shifting the ball under his arm, “You don’t have as much power as you do with an over hand…” He looked at the ball she had just hit that was rolling a very short distance off. “But we may need to just get you the height to get it over instead.”

“Ok,” she put her hand on her hip, “So how do I do that then?”

“Ah ever the diligent little Ori-chan,” Tendo said as he joined the two outside the gym “Did seeing us practice get you all pumped to try it on your own?”

“Sure Tendo,” she said barely paying any attention as she watched Eita show her the motions.

Tendo noticed that she wasn’t paying attention to him, a small smirk spread across his face. He had already gotten a rise out of Ushijima for once, he wanted to see if he could go two for two.

“Nice weather for practicing eh?”

“Uh-huh,” she said now miming the motions before Eita gave her the ball to try it herself.

“Will you give me chocolate on Valentine’s Day?”

“Yeah whatever Tendo, can you shut up now?”

She had been about to try the serve when the words just replayed through her head. “Wait…”

Ushijima was walking over to them as Satori jumped and squealed. “TOSHI ORI-CHAN IS GOING TO GIVE ME CHOCOLATE FOR VALENTINE’S!!”

“WAIT A MINUTE!” She shouted as the tall middle blocker announced her mistake to everyone. “I DIDN’T HEAR WHAT YOU WERE SAYING!!!!”

Eita couldn’t even pass this one up. “Man Ori, and you never even give me friendship chocolate for Valentine’s.”

Minori growled and tried to throw the ball and Tendo’s head, she missed and Ushijima caught it instead. She realized he hadn’t even been looking at the ball but sharply at Tendo as well.

He had just caught it on instinct. His gaze shifted back over to her and she froze for a moment.

It was, really intense.

“Shizaraki…”

She held her breath, almost certain that his next words were going to be….

“I agree with Semi that you should try an underhand serve.”

Well, she thought, that was underwhelming. Her eyes closed and she brought a hand to her forehead.

“Right,” she sighed. “That’s what I was getting ready to try before Tendo had to go and be stupid.”

Ushijima nodded and then turned to his friend, “Satori.”

The red-head smiled, “Hai?”

“Leave.”

Everyone blinked. Was it just Minori or did that come out a bit…harsh.

“You are distracting her. You should go.”

Minori gave the tall ace a good look over, something wasn’t adding up in her head. He was normally blunt, but this seemed, different somehow.

Tendo, for his part played it off, even though he also felt the…threat, behind his captain’s words. “Can do. I look forward to my chocolate soon Ori-chan!”

The girl in question smacked her forehead with a groan. After clearing her mind though, she pulled her arm back and let go of the ball as she swung it forward.

She missed.

“Ugh,” she said as it fell to the ground. Instead of clinging to the mistake, she grabbed the ball and tried again.

It took her a few more tries before she had even managed to hit it, and when she did it just went straight up, then came down right into her face.

As the ball bounced once again to the ground she frowned. The hit was light, she wanted to get into the habit of making contact with the ball before she put any real force into hitting it. It was the frustration and embarrassment that caused her to sit down on the ground and pout, glaring at the ball as it came to a stop.

Ushijima narrowed his gaze at her. Instead of saying anything, he went over to her, grabbed her under her arms and made her stand up again. Once she was on her feet, he went over and grabbed the ball, walking back grabbing her right wrist and pulling it up so he could put the ball into it.

“Again.”

Minori just stared at him for a moment. Then with a sigh she got ready to try again. Ushijima took a step back.

Before she tried again, Eita coughed. “I’m going to let Toshi take over. I uh…have a thing…that I…need to do.”

She turned and glared at him. “Look if you are tired of trying to help me fine.” She looked ahead and away from him. “You don’t need to make stupid excuses.”

Eita wasn’t exactly leaving because he was tired of teaching her…it was a little different than that. He still didn’t correct her as he walked away, heading in the direction that Tendo had.

Tendo wasn’t too far away, watching Ushijima and Shizaraki from behind the gym.

“Well?”

Eita sighed. “It’s up to them…”

Tendo sighed, but peeked his head around the corner as Minori leaned her arm back to try another underhand serve.

Before she could however, Ushijima stopped her by grabbing her arm and moving it.

She was used to this by now, him moving her limbs into the way that would be better to do what she needed.

“Pull back a little further and toss the ball a little higher.”

Minori nodded and tried what he told her to do. She did hit it, but it went straight up once again.

Ushijima frowned as he watched the ball, catching it once it came back down. “You’re hitting it at the wrong time.”

She couldn’t help the slightly frustration. “So when is the right time?”

He moved behind her, and she held her breath as he wrapped his arm around her. “I am going to apologize,” she straightened as she felt his breath on the top of her head “I am not used to using my right arm.”

She swallowed, “I-it’s o-okay.”

He just wants to make sure that you do it right, she thought as he took her right hand in his. It doesn’t mean anything, she closed her eyes and tried to control her beating heart.

Ushijima noticed that his own heart began to beat faster, even though he wasn’t doing anything strenuous. His brow furrowed, but he continued to show Shizaraki the movements he wanted her to follow.

“Hit it when the ball is here,” he moved her arm to hit the ball that he still held in his left hand.

Minori cleared her throat and nodded.

Almost unwillingly, Ushijima removed himself for her and handed the ball to her. Backing up, he watched as she mimed the motion first and then went in for an actual serve.

The ball went forward, it hit the top of the net and didn’t make it over, but Minori turned around to smile at Ushijima.

He nodded at her, ignoring the small tightness that formed in his chest upon seeing her bright smile. “Again.”

She gave him a salute and ran over to grab the ball.

Wakatoshi’s eyes widened as he watched her bare legs moving. A blush dusted his cheeks and he looked away. Thankfully for him, Minori’s gaze was focused on the ball, trying to get her own reactions under control.

She kept practicing those serves until the night started to close in. They were getting better, most of them actually making it over the net, some of them even earning her a “Good” from Ushijima.

Every single time she completed one, he would tell her, “Again.”

Minori hit over the net once more, and she was waiting for his prompt to go again. When she didn’t hear it, Minori turned back to look at him.

He was looking away from her, but when she turned her head to see what he was looking at, there was nothing.

“That’s enough for tonight.”

She nodded finally starting to feel the tightness in her arms. “Thank you for everything Ushijima, I really appreciate it.” She walked over with the ball under her arm, heading to the gym to put it back in there.

He didn’t really see any reason to respond to it, so he didn’t. He simply nodded to her.

Tendo and Eita groaned, they threw their heads back when they just watched Minori walk to the gym and Wakatoshi not even look at her as she walked away.

“He was doing so good! He should have just gone for it!” Tendo said as he leaned his head forward, looking down at his hands. “The guy must be a saint I don’t think I would have able…”

“CHILDHOOD FRIEND TENDO!” While his voice was raised, he still tried to keep it quiet since they were outside and there was a likelihood they would hear them.

Then they watched as Ushijima squatted on the ground, his elbows resting on his knees.

Eita looked at Tendo, “What the hell is he doing?”

The red-head just shrugged which is when they saw Minori coming out of the gym once more. Apparently she too thought that Ushijima was being weird.

“USHIJIMA.”

The volleyball player turned his head, remaining in his squatted position.

“What are you doing? Let’s go get something to eat.”

Eita whispered, “There you go, bring him back in Ori.”

Tendo pouted. “Why does Ushijima have to make this so hard?”


	23. Chapter 23

“I did not think you meant desserts when you said ‘get something to eat’.”

Minori lifted her head to give the volleyball player a cat-like smile as she looked up from her ice cream. He just sighed and continued. “I should know by now.”

Still smiling up at him she held her ice cream cone up to him. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“No thank you.”

“Then do you want to go get real food?”

She blushed to herself, knowing that if it were anyone else, they would probably see that as an invitation to a date…

…but with Ushijima…

“I can get something at the cantina. It is getting late and you should return to the dorm.”

“Why me? Don’t you need to get back too?”

Ushijima blinked. “I do, but you are a girl. It is more important that you get back safely.”

Now it was Minori’s turn to blink, and for her brow to furrow. “What does me being a girl have anything to do with that? That is some archaic reasoning you have there.”

He just looked back at her, but said nothing. To him, what he said was true. She was a girl and she was small, she shouldn’t be out late at night. It was dangerous. He was also already frustrated for some reason. Wakatoshi had noticed that he was getting frustrated when he saw some teenagers’ gaze lingering on Minori while she was getting her ice cream, especially as she was leaning over to look at the different flavors.

His face may not have shown anything, but dark thoughts swirled in Ushijima’s mind as he had moved in front of her and turned to look at the other boys. They had quickly turned away, but the frustration had stuck with him.

Minori just rolled her eyes and caught up with him as he had continued on when she stopped to give him a good glare. “Alright, I will allow you to be chivalrous.”

They stayed silent the rest of the way to the girl’s dorms, each of them stuck in their own thoughts. When she was walking up the steps of the front door, she turned to look back to him. “See you tomorrow?”

He met her gaze and saw her small smile as she looked down at him for once. “You need much more practice.”

She closed her eyes and her shoulders fell forward. “Wow, thanks.”

“But you are doing very well compared to what I saw the first day.”

She continued to frown. “I’m going to take that as positive reinforcement, but you may want to work on your execution.”

As she turned to the door, she waved over her shoulder. “Good night Ushijima.”

He stayed there, staring after her even after she had disappeared through the door. HIs thoughts went back to earlier, when he had held her. He knew that he didn’t have to hold her like that to show her what she needed to do, he sure wouldn’t if it had been his teammates…

…so why did he?

He went back to the question he had been thinking about for a while. Did he have romantic feelings for Shizaraki?

Tendo didn’t really give him the answer that he had been looking for. Instead his friend had told him that he didn’t like Shizaraki, so he couldn’t dig deeper about what that felt like.

He turned from the girls’ dorms and instead of heading to the cantina like he had planned, he headed over to his own dorm.

“Semi.”

The ash blond looked over at Ushijima that sat just to his left in class. “What’s up Ushiwaka?”

“Have you ever liked someone?”

Eita laughed internally, looks like it was his turn. “Yeah I’ve gone out with a few girls.”

“I don’t understand why going outside with a girl would mean that you like them.”

“No Toshi.” Patience Eita, he thought to himself as he clearing his throat. “Dating, I have dated girls. Like in manga.”

“Ah,” he looked up as he thought, “When a boy and a girl that like each other go to an amusement park?”

“Like that yes. When a boy and a girl both like each other, they start dating.”

“But how do know if you like someone?”

Eita closed his eyes and sighed. “Ok. Toshi, do you think you may like someone?”

Ushijima blinked. “I do not know.”

“So what makes you think you may like this person?”

“I don’t want her to leave my sight, and I think she is very pretty.”

“Well I would say that means you like someone,” he paused, leaning back in his chair and yawning. “Tell the girl and see if she likes you as well.”

Ushijima felt his shoulders stiffen, and something twisted in his gut.

Eita thought that would be that, the guy was a very ‘one track mind’ type of guy anyways. So he definitely didn’t expect his next question.

“What if she does not?”

Eita blinked and sat forward. “What?”

“What if she does not like me?”

Eita was at a loss, and he stumbled. How did he explain a crush or heartbreak to a guy that didn’t even know what it felt like to ‘like’ someone? “Uh, well…then…”

Ushijima was waiting for him, but Semi honestly didn’t have an answer for him.

The teacher walked in and they had to stand and bow. Eita was happy to have more time to think on how to answer that. 

“I need to get out of the dorms this weekend,” Eita grabbed Minori’s arm as soon as he saw her in the gym.

She turned to him with wide eyes. “Uh, ok. Why?”

“Uh…”

Minori shrugged, the guy had been giving really vague excuses and explanations lately. “It’s Spring Cleaning…if you go home, your mom is going to make you come down and help.”

“Yeah sounds great.”

That had her lower her brow. “Tata, you hate cleaning…and you have been acting really weird. Are you ok?”

Eita bit his lip, but decided to tell her….at least a little bit.

“I’m trying to avoid Ushijima.”

She blinked at him a few times, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t she asked, “And why are you avoiding Ushijima?”

“He has been acting weird…”

“I have noticed.”

“And he keeps asking me weird questions.”

“So why not just answer them.”

He brought his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “Ok, how would YOU try to explain what love is to someone…?”

Oh shit. Eita realized what he had done one minute too late. He opened his eyes to see Minori biting her lip.

“Ushijima….thinks he loves someone?”

“I think he is trying to figure it out,” Eita really wanted to tell Minori that he was almost positive that it was her that Wakatoshi was asking about, but he couldn’t be 100% certain. He had seen the glances the ace had been giving her, but with Ushiwaka, you could never been sure what was going through his head outside of volleyball.

She stayed quiet, looking down at the ground.

Eita frowned as Minori turned away and watched as she put the ball back into the cart with the others.

“I actually have a stomach ache,” she turned to him, but didn’t meet his eyes. “I think I may take a break today.”

He watched as she exited the gym, slipping her shoes back on before walking out. He couldn’t think of anything to convince her to stay and he sighed deeply when she disappeared.

He had to let Tendo know and he pulled out his cellphone just as said red-head walked into the gym. Ushijima was right behind him.

“Hey guys, uh, Ori-chan actually just let me know that she had something come up…so she isn’t going to practice today.”

“She just said that she was going to lay down and hoped a little more sleep will take care of it.” Ok that isn’t EXACTLY what she said, he thought, but he knew that she had just said something that would get her off.

Ushijima was surprisingly silent. “I am going to the gym then.”

The other two guys said nothing as he turned and walked out the gym, instead Eita grabbed Tendo to keep him from leaving as well.

“I may have messed up.”

Satori’s other brow went up.

“I was trying to get a good excuse to get out of the dorms this weekend, and Ori-chan thought I was being suspicious…”

“Because she is the smartest woman I know.”

“Anyway, I told her that I was trying to avoid Ushijima because he kept asking me questions.”

“Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about that…”

“And I may have let it slip that he was asking about…”

“About liking someone…Oh boy…”

Eita and Tendo sighed. “WHY DO THESE TWO HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT?!” Tendo whined.

Haru glared at the volleyball players across the cantina. Minori was still laughing with the others at the table, but Haru could see the tightness in her motions and smile.

And she knew those dumb volleyball players had to do something with it.

Ushijima was busy eating and didn’t even notice she was throwing murderous glances at him…but Tendo and Eita were actively trying to avoid her gaze.

They thought when the girls stood to leave, they were in the clear. So Eita and Tendo were not expecting a sharp tug on their earlobes as they were heading back to class.

“What did I tell you about messing with my friend?”

Ushijima looked back at his friends, but continued on to class, not wanting to be late.

“Geez let up, will you.” Tendo grabbed her wrist to take a little tension off his ear. EIta just closed his eyes and whimpered.

“What did you guys do this time?”

“Hey, hey, we are TRYING to help!”

Haru glared, “Well whatever you are ‘helping’ with, you need to cut it out.”

“Ugh,” Eita finally managed to get her to let go of his ear. “Listen, we are trying to work on getting Ushijima and Ori-chan together. We just hit a bit of a rough spot.”

Haru blinked. “And why wasn’t I brought into this plan?”

Tendo looked up at the ceiling and smiled. “Well, we may not even know your name…” “Yaki Haru. You can call me Haru-sama.”

“Why sama?”

“Because you guys are idiots, now tell me what the hell is going on.”

Minori felt her arms tremble but she continued to scrub the inside of the bath.

She was at home, helping with the ryokan’s Spring cleaning. While they always cleaned rooms and facilities when patrons left, twice a year (Spring and Fall), the entire hotel got a deep cleaning.

The baths were currently closed off so they could be drained and completely scrubbed down. Normally two people would do this, but Minori told her mother that she wanted to it on her own.

She wanted to be alone with her thoughts. 


End file.
